CONTENTSEditor’s Note 3

The Aims of Education 5

The Arts as Education ANJANA PURI 14Why Arts Education Should be Includedin the Curricular Area

Constructivism and the Pedagogy of SAROJ PANDEY 21Education for PeaceA Reflection on School Education CurriculumReform (NCF-2005)

Religion, Education and Peace RADHIKA HERZBERGER 30

Reinventing the Paradigm of Teaching ANJALI KHIRWADKAR 50Implication for Teacher Education

A Study of Relationship between PARAMANAND SINGH YADAV 59Environmental Awareness and and ANITA BHARATI

Scientific Attitudes among HigherSecondary Students

Teachers’ Expectations from their M. VARMA, M. S. SODHA 70University and RASHMI SONI

A Study in the Context of Universityof Lucknow

A Study of the Present Scenario of G.N.P. SRIVASTAVA 85Early Childhood Education (ECE) and RANJEATA SINGH

in Bhubaneswar

Participation of Scheduled Castes RAJESH TAILOR, SANDEEP KUMAR SHARMA 98Children at the Primary Stage in India and RITESH TAILOR

Strengthening the Role of State PH. NEWTON SINGH 108in School Education vis-à-vis thePrivate Initiative

JOURNAL OF

INDIANEDUCATION

Volume XXXIII Number 2 August 2007

The Aims of Education 5

The Aims of Education*

Abstract

Introduction

For a fairly long time now, we have beenengaged in the great task of educatingthe children of India, an independentnation with a rich variegated history,extraordinarily complex culturaldiversity, and commitment to democraticvalues and general well-being. Given theenormity and importance of this task, itis necessary that we create occasionsfrom time to time to sit back collectively

As an apex national agency of educational reform, NCERT is expected to reviewthe school curriculum as a regular activity, ensuring the highest standards ofrigour and deliberative openness in the process. Consequently, in 2004, the NCERTinitiated the review of National Curriculum Framework for School Education–2000. In the context of this exercise, a National Steering Committee chaired byProf. Yash Pal and 21 National Focus groups were set up. These focus groupswere created to generate ideas and to reflect upon curricular areas, nationalconcerns and systemic reforms. Each Focus Group through discussions andintensive deliberations produced a research-based Position Paper providing acomprehensive view of existing knowledge in the area and future direction. Theposition papers prepared by the NFGs provided inputs to the National CurriculumFramework–2005. All these position papers are available in print form and also onNCERT’s website. For the readers of the Journal of Indian Education we presenthere the text of one such position paper Aims of Education.

* Position Paper, National Focus Group on Aims of Education, National CurriculumFramework–2005, NCERT, New Dellhi.

and ask ourselves, ‘what are we doing inour engagement with this task? Is therea need to ask ourselves afresh some ofthe basic questions such as what oughtto be the purpose of education?’ Theconstitution of the focus group on theaims of education is perhaps meant toprovide such an occasion.

If we look at what the schooleducation system has done in the lastdecades, perhaps we have much to besatisfied with. Products of this system

The Aims of Education 7

useful, but, very importantly, have thisother expressive aspect. A communitytraditionally assumes a degree ofcontinuity for itself–continuity of itsconstituent structures of humanrelationships, which give it, to a largeextent, its identity and meaning. Giventhis assumption, the aims of educationwithin what might, somewhatmisleadingly, be called a communitarianframework, have primarily to do with thecommunity’s idea of well-being andflourishing. The highest value thateducation within such a framework wasexpected to promote and foster was,perhaps, ‘allegiance to the community’.

However, even though communitycontinues to be a powerful presence inour own times, and despite proliferationof deliberately constructed communities,the world has for a long time been movingaway from a community-centric view ofhuman existence in two widely divergentdirections: the direction of the individualand the direction of the universal or theglobal. The well-being of the individualis seen to be more important than thewell-being of the community. Thisperhaps is the genesis of the idea ofhuman rights as of many other centralconcepts of the modern world.

Humanity is sometimes conceived asthe ‘community’ of all individual humanbeings. But this is a seriousmisconstrual of the idea of a community.Our attachment to the notion ofcommunity is profound and persistent.In equating humanity to a community,we not only give expression to thisattachment but also invest it with ameaning it does not have.

Given the radical change ofperspective that has taken place,

education must now be seen as fosteringvalues which constitute the well-beingof the individual on the one hand andthe well-being of humanity on the other.

But the difficulty here of course, isto clear about the notion of theindependent of the complex matrix ofrelationships in which an individual isinevitably located? And what is this all –inclusive humanity, as distinct from thisor that specific variety of humanity?

The lack of clarity about the idea ofan individual and humanity as such isbound to create difficulties for us inthinking about the aims of education inour times. Thus, for instance, we haveto find a way out of a seemingcontradiction such as: We mustencourage children to cultivate the‘scientific temper’ (that is, the tendencyto follow their reason beyond the dictatesof culture, tradition, and community)and also teach them the unassailablevalues of humanity. Also, we must find astable room for the nation between theindividual and the humanity.

Aims of Education

Here are however, issues relating toeducation about which have a fairly clearidea and about which there ought to begeneral agreement to a large extent. Itwould be helpful to seek an answer tothe question ‘what ought to be the aimsof education?’ by way of our engagementwith these issues:

(i) School education is a deliberateand more-or -less externalintervention in the life of a child.Although much learning andteaching takes place at home, in theneighbourhood community, and in

The Aims of Education 9

to do with moral life at all. For example,courage by itself can be put to incrediblyevil use; think of the courage NathuramGodse. The same thing can be said ofintelligence. As to temperance if it istempered with the vital unity of moral life,it is in perpetual danger of degeneratinginto soulless, ritualistic disciplining ofoneself.

What is it that breathes morality intothe virtues? It is – we must have thecourage to acknowledge – truth and love,or, in terms of our own powerful traditionof moral thought, ahimsa. Truth meansfreedom from self-deception; here it isnever enough to speak the truthoccasionally. As Wittgenstein puts it, “Thetruth can be spoken by someone who isalready at home in it; not by someonewho still lives in falsehood and reachesout from falsehood towards truth on justone occasion.”2 Courage, temperance,intelligence, and so on cannot cometogether in the vital unity of virtuous lifeunless they are profoundly mediated bythe love of truth. And the love of truth-when we are talking of a moral life-canflourish in the supreme and activepresence of ahimsa.

Secondly, in the context of moral life,the means and the end must form acontinuum such that, as it were, themeans and the ends make a wholesomeunity? The distinction between themeans and the end in this context, ifthere is one at all, is not the same as thedistinction where the means is merelyinstrumental in producing the end, forexample, playing football as a means ofkeeping physically fit. Morality is externalto a virtuous life in the way football is

external to physical fitness. (The positiontaken here is distinct from the utilitarianposition epitomised in the dictum‘honesty is the best policy’.) In the moralsphere, the process is integral to theproduct and the product is inalienablefrom the process. Here, there can be nosuch thing as finding the most efficientmeans of achieving a predetermined goal(as in, say, matters of management), forthe means in the pursuit of a moral endis not replaceable.

An important corollary of this is thatif value education must be a part of theeducation system, values or virtues mustbe integral to the whole process ofeducation. Value education cannot beimparted as a separate bit of education;the whole of education has to be valueeducation. Here, we need the powerfulreminders, in variety of ways, of theGandhian ideas of ahimsa, peace, andharmony.

(iv) Cultural diversity is one of ourgreatest gifts. To respect and dojustice to others is also to respectand do justice to their respectivecultures or communities. We,therefore, need to radically changethe centre versus peripheryperspective on interculturalrelationships in our country.Cultures on the so-called peripherymust receive as much attention ascultures in the centre. As foreducation, its implications is thatways of life other than one’s ownmust be imaginatively andeffectively presented as deserving ofas much respect as one’s own.

2 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1973. Culture and Value, Blackwell.

The Aims of Education 11

Some Implications for Pedagogy andEvaluation

It may be useful to consider some of theimplications of what has been said so farfor pedagogy and evaluation. Thestrangeness of the school environmentcan be mitigated by imaginatively linkingthe experience of school with the child’sexperience outside it in the community.While school might have many new andexciting experiences for the child, it mustnot appear as rejecting or eve ignoringthe child’s experience in the community.Pedagogy will gain but incorporatingchildren’s experience of what the Greeksused to call oikos, and likewise and it canteach them fresh ways of experiencingthe world outside the school. Forexample, if a child has grown up inintimate contact with the nature aroundhim, as most children in tribalcommunities do, school can enrich andenhance this intimacy by sharpeningthe child’s awareness of his own naturalenvironment–something that sadly doesnot happen in most of our schools. Therole of the teacher here is absolutelycrucial. One is reminded of the nineteen-year-old teacher who came to help Tagorewith the teaching in his school:

With him boys never felt that theywere confined in the limit of a teachingclass; they seemed to have their accessto everywhere. They would go with himto the forest when in the spring the saltrees were in full blossom and he wouldrecite to them his favorite poems, frenziedwith excitement…He never had the feelingof distrust for the boys’ capacity of

understanding …. He knew that it was notat all necessary for the boys tounderstand literally and accurately, butthat their minds should be roused, andin this he was always successful he wasnot like other teachers, a mere vehicle oftextbooks. He made his teachingpersonal, he himself was the source ofit, and therefore it was made of life stuff,easily assimilable by the living humannature.”3

Pedagogy must draw upon resourcesof creativity and exploration, such asliterature in its various forms and historyin its uncovering modes, e.g., unmaskingthe mind of the colonisers as well as thatof the colonised. It is important toestablish connections betweenapparently discrete events and things,between things and events close to oneand those distant in time and space–connections which can bring suddenlight to the workings of the child’s ownmind.

If the world of education is, in asense, moral education, and if meansand ends in moral matters areorganically or internally connected, theteacher, who is the primary vehicle ofeducation, must be seen substantially asan embodiment of virtues in his role asa teacher.

Teaching should be in theconversational mode rather than in themode of authoritarian monologue. It isin the conversational mode that the childis likely to grow in self-confidence andself-awareness and will more easilyestablish connections between the

3 Tagore, Rabindranath 1996. My School. In Sisir Kumar Das (ed.) English Writings of Tagore,Vol. II. Sahitya Academy.

The Aims of Education 13

have learnt through participation in thepractices of our communities. In differentcommunities, the practices andtraditions vary widely.

The term tradition may be interpretedin many ways. In its barest sense, itmeans that which is handed down ortransmitted from generation togeneration in a community because itconsists of devices and principles thathave helped the community to makesense of its experiences and activities.Perhaps, it was for this reason thatWittgenstein had rightly remarked,“tradition is not………a thread he (man) canpick up when he feels like it any morethan a man can choose his ownancestors.”4

Education as a planned endeavour,at a personal level on a small scale orinstitutional level on a large scale, aimsat making children capable of becomingactive, responsible, productive, andcaring members of society. They aremade familiar with the various practicesof the community by imparting therelevant of skills and ideas. Ideally,education is supposed to encourage thestudents to analyse and evaluate theirexperiences, to doubt, to question, toinvestigate – in other words, to beinquisitive and to think independently.

As we grow, we face new andunfamiliar experiences which questionour old ways of thinking as these

experiences are either inconsistent withor at a considerable variance from whatwe had gradually learnt to take forgranted. Such experiences are criticaland challenging as they involve or requireformulation of new concepts, revision ofpreconceived notions, and new ways oflooking at and dealing with the world. Itis this unique human ability that iscalled rationality, which is manifested inhuman behaviour in a wide variety ofways.

Our attempts to make sense of ourexperiences, to comprehend the worldthat we live in, require that we recognisepatterns, structures, and order in theworld. Without such recognition, wewould not be able to make anyjudgements; we could not be in a positionto be certain about anything. This questfor certainty, taken to its extreme, maybecome a demand for a monistic andabsolute criterion by which it would bepossible to draw sharp lines between therational and the irrational, knowledgeand a lack of it. In becoming captives ofsuch a restricting vision, we forgetthat there are numerous ways in whichwe learnt to know and to reason aboutthe world. This forgetting leads us toreduce rationality to mere formulas ofdeductive reasoning, placing greatervalue on theory over practice, naturalsciences over art, and information overknowledge.

4 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1973. Culture and Value, Blackwell. P.76.

14 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

The Arts as EducationWhy Arts Education should beIncluded in the Curricular Area

ANJANA PURI*

Abstract

IntroductionRepeating what has been said time andagain in the context of the status of thearts within the framework of schooleducation may seem pointless. But it doesnot stop one from wondering why the artsare still not considered on a par with the

Although the arts are as old as mankind and are as complex as the ways ofhuman beings, they have not yet been given the same status as the sciences andthe humanities have been given, within the frame of school education. One has yetto understand the inherent link that connects the arts to other subjects, givingthem their inter-disciplinary character. Each of the arts – irrespective of whetherthey are performing, non-performing, visual – has inherent values that make it asource for education, holistic in nature. It thus becomes significant to examineperformance holistically, because within the concept of holistic performance are alarge number of areas that might be diverse in nature, but are closely linked toeach other within as well as outside the bounds of the art form. It is, therefore,required to look for the relationship between the performing arts and the othersubjects. One could investigate to what extent the arts have been integrated in thetext of specific subject areas or one could look for different subject areas in theperforming and visual arts. This would need analysing the arts in a manner thatwould highlight various fields associated integrally with the arts. The arts have tobe considered as something beyond immediate performance, comprehending thedifference in concepts such as ‘arts in education’, ‘arts and education’ and ‘art aseducation’.

*Senior Consultant, (Music), DEAA, NCERT, New Delhi.

sciences and with other subjectscomprising the humanities. The arts areas old as mankind and therefore havehistory; they are region specific andtherefore are connected with geography;they are expressions of the complex webof socio-developmental structures on

The Arts as Education 15

which human society functions and aretherefore integrally linked withsociological study; they are expressedthrough sound, word and script, and aretherefore linguistic manifestations; theyare mental images, which are givenphysical expression through apsychological process; converting whatis concealed within into visible outerimages through psychological andphysiological acts involves scientificanalysis; drawings are geometricalimpressions; colours are the play of lightand shade; and the aesthetics of colour,sound and form give the arts anenhanced status that actually makesthem unparalleled. If this is not enoughto give the arts the stature they deservein the academics, what is?

True, the arts are as complex as theways of the human being – allexpressions is complex. The developmentfrom rock art drawings where “the legacyof mankind [that] captures experience ofthe life phenomena of man”1 to the linesof abstraction and representationstimulating the imagination to think interms of serpentine lines, circles, curves,squares, form and non-form, illustratesthe most modern of 20th century artexpression. Think of surrealism,2 whichhas traced a significant route from innerreality to outer physical manifestation.It is true, though, that while this isevident of the visual arts, it is moredifficult to define, say, music and themusicality of the voice. Music andmusicality are at once oral and aural,formless unless transcribed palpablyeven though they are as physical asbreathing. They are a ‘canvas’ thatdisplays sound-shapes beginning withthe sound of the child’s first cry and going

on to the most complex musical patternsrendered in performances. In a backdropas colourful as this, it would be of theessence to understand the intra- and aninter-disciplinary character of the arts.

The Arts and their Different Streams

Performing and visual arts areexpressions of inner reactions to thesurrounding environment. Regardless ofwhether it is a child’s scribbling or itsvocal sounds devoid of meaningful words,they are effective articulations of whatis veiled within. These at a later stagedevelop into disciplined arts ofexpression, the mediums of which mightbe varied. What a child passively imbibesfrom its surroundings includes adiversity of areas that might or might notbe connected to music, dance, acting,painting, various crafts or sculpting. Yetthe arts do become the means to expressthe content, relationship and inter-playof different subjects.

Although all the arts within theIndian context might together broadly becategorised as performing and non-performing art forms, or performing andvisual arts, there is in fact a line, nearlyinvisible, that separates one from theother. What might seem visual in theform of a painting or other craft has moreoften than not had a link withperformance. One, does not, after all,hear the lilting recitation of arithmeticthat the weaver sings to him/herselfwhile he/she weaves a motif. The maskdoes not bring alive the character centralto a performance as it does in a ritual ordance, when it hangs on a wall farremoved from context. What mightdecorate the walls of a drawing room inurban settings could very well be

16 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

something steeped in belief, ritual andphilosophy in the rural milieu. Be it thepar3 which becomes the focal point in theperformance of a Rajasthani folknarrative, or the Puruliya Chau4 maskwithout which the Puruliya Chhauperformance is meaningless, theperformative and the visual are well-knit. These ‘objects of craft’ may not bemeant to be considered in isolation. Buta curious mind might want to inquirewhat it is essentially or whence it came.It is, of course, beyond doubt that whileon the one hand one does recognise theclose link between performance andvisual, the difference between the two issufficiently discernible to consider themindependently.

In the performing art forms such asthe Siddi Dhamal5 and Teyyam6,performance and the visual fuse,inseparably. There are the classicalperforming art forms, where theperformance itself becomes the visual.The visual is the performance. Theelement of ‘visual’ performance is, ofcourse, more prominent in danceslike Kathakali, Odissi, Kathak,Bharatanatyam, Mohiniattam andManipuri. The visuals that music createsare varied and very different from thevisuals that a dance creates. A singerlike, for instance, Gangubai Hangal, whois a small-built person off stage, wouldgain a giant size during performance.The visual that the Shehnai maestro,late Ustad Bismillah Khan, created inperformance with his entire group of co-performers was a powerful picture,difficult to forget. The performances ofthe kabeerpanthis7, Prahalad SinghTippaniya’s troupe, are spell-binding.The colourful turbans of a group of

Manganiar singers create both imagesand imagery. Then, in its stillness apainting moves, speaks, performs andcreates imagery. It is a visual, whichmight change every time one turns to lookat it. The peformative element seems,indeed, to exist in everything. In order torecognise this performative element it isnecessary to develop a discerning eye, areceptive ear and a sensitive mind. Tounderstand and appreciate the artsneeds preparation. The requiredpreparation would no doubt be holisticin nature – a preparation mostappropriate for the comprehensivedevelopment of the child.

Validating the Arts

What has been the purpose of theseperforming, non-performing and visualart forms? Why have they always been apart of the psyche? What is it that makesthem so important within the Indiansocial structure? And if they are asimportant as they do seem, why is oneso hesitant in accepting them as a partof academics?

Looking for a ‘purpose’ in the arts islike wanting to know what the purposemight be in daydreaming. Why shouldone desire to reach the tip of MountEverest or why would one want to flybeyond the stars? What urges theboatman to sing while he rows his boatand what makes a grandmother want totake a child into the fantastic world thather stories weave? While analysingdaydreams might shatter their non-being, the arts often make analysisnecessary. Daydreams could bedescribed as pleasant, wanderingthoughts that distract one’s attentionfrom the present, whereas the arts are

The Arts as Education 17

outcomes of social activity. They areexpressions or applications of creativeskill and imagination through visualmediums such as painting or sculpture,or through performance such as musicand dance, or acting. An art form is aconventionally established form ofartistic composition, such as an oral orwritten text, which could be presentedas a narrative composition depictedthrough a pata chitra8 or renderedthrough kathagayaki9, as is done in thePandavani10. Thus, the arts are subjectsof study concerned primarily with humanculture. This makes it necessary toinvestigate them “against thebackground of physio-geographicalrealities, racial strands, agriculturalfunctions and social organisations whichhave contributed in giving them adistinctive character”11. Parallelexistence of variegated, complex streamsof performing and visual art forms hascreated multicoloured pictures. If oneviews the arts as a creation that has nopurpose or meaning beyond itself, itbecomes what in popular parlance isknown as art for art’s sake. Antitheticalto this is the view that the arts are ablueprint for a better society. They havea purpose beyond being a mere displayof creativity. Each of the arts –irrespective of whether they areperforming, non-performing, visual – hasinherent values. This makes each art asource for education, holistic in nature.

Performing and non-performing artforms in India have, down the ages, beencoupled with the community’s worldview. They have been handed down fromone generation to the next, creating anoral tradition of transmitting knowledge.Within the performing arts, singing,

playing of musical instruments, dancing,acting, recitation, narration, acrobaticfeats along with visual components suchas crafts, attire, weaving, drawing andpainting, make-up, design – these mergeinto a single whole. Ironically, down theyears, each integral unit has been,segregated from the other. Thissegregation might have achieved thesmall aim of giving these areas anindividual status as solo art forms. Butit has, in the process, tended to reducetheir size and stature. Each of theseareas has a philosophy, sociology,history, language, vocabulary and acultural idiom, fusing to become anintegrated whole through rendition ordepiction.

The Cross-curricular Character ofthe Arts

There are two ways of looking for arelationship between the performing artsand the other subjects. One way wouldbe to look for the arts and aesthetics inareas of other subjects, for investigatingto what extent the arts have been

Arts

Language

EconomicsHistory

SociologyCommerce

Geography Technology

EnvironmentalStudies

Science

Fig. 1: Looking for the arts in differentsubjects

18 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

integrated in the text. The drawing belowshows how it might be possible to do this.Some difficulty might be encounteredsince the sciences and humanities, aswell as commerce and economics, aretoday highly specialised subjects. Howmuch space do they really leave forincorporating the visual and performingarts?

There is also another way of doingthis. Would it not be simpler to look fordifferent subject areas in the performingand visual arts? This would needanalysing the arts in a manner such thatvarious fields associated integrally withthe arts are highlighted. This wouldenable teacher and student to view anart form beyond immediate performance.

For example, the Sidigoma dancershail from Africa and are followers of theSufi mystic Baba Gaur. It should beinteresting to trace not only the historyof this community but also thegeographical route the community tookto come to India. It should be ofconsiderable interest to the student toanalyse the language in which they sing,

their philosophy and world-view, and thesocial circumstances that designed theirperformance. It might also be of interestfor the student to understand how a wayof life could become an art form, and how,by turning into an art form, it couldacquire commercial value. This mightexplain also to some extent theconnection of the arts with economicsand commerce.

The student may also be interestedin discovering how deep-rooted sociologyis in community arts. Innumerable formsof expression emerge because of socialreasons, because of integration with theenvironment in which a community islocated, and are representational ofcultures and worldviews unique innature. They might be occupational bynature, and at the same time symbolisea way of life that supports their veryexistence. For instance, the Tippanidance of Chorwad in the coastal area ofSaurashtra is in fact the consequenceof an occupational behaviour pattern.Floors and ceilings of houses in oldendays were not made of cement but offinely pounded limestone, or chuna.Women pounded it rhythmically with astick to which was attached a disc calledtippani, in order to turn the chuna intofine powder. Songs accompanied therhythm of the pounding, making the hardwork relatively easy. When cement andother material replaced this traditionalmortar or chuna, what remained of thepounding-work were its movements andaccompanying songs. The tippani isnow a musical instrument. This danceform – danced by women – is calledTippani Naach.

It thus becomes significant toexamine performance holistically,

Arts

Fig. 2: Looking for other subjects in the arts

Language

History

Sociology

Technology

EnvironmentalStudies

Economics

Commerce

Geography

Science

The Arts as Education 19

because within the concept of holisticperformance are a large number of areasthat might be diverse in nature, but areclosely linked to each other within as wellas outside the bounds of the art form.Separating them from each other wouldmean removing them from their primecontext. Considered thus, it becomesessential to recognise an art form’s linkswith other subject-areas such aslanguage, history, geography, sociology,psychology, philosophy, mathematicsand the sciences. This would, in turn,take these closer to the performing arts,without their being considered in thecurriculum as extra-curricular, non-scholastic, co-scholastic or non-cognitive. While an extra-curricularactivity could be likened to a hobby,which can be pursued in addition to thenormal curriculum, the word non-scholastic implies that which does nothelp academic achievement and does notsupport learning of any high level. It is

not involved or related to scholarship.The word co-scholastic indicates anadded interest that goes also with othermore ‘meaningful’ subjects. Non-cognitive indicates not being fit enoughto be acceptable as supporting, orfacilitating mental action or process ofacquiring knowledge through thought,experience, and the senses. Thus, to tagthese adjective on to the arts would be aderogatory act.

It would also be necessary to considerthe difference in concepts such as ‘artsin education’, ‘arts and education’ and‘art as education’. One would have alsoto go beyond using the arts as simply atool for education. While using the artsas an educational tool might beproductive in conveying a lesson to thestudent, care needs to be taken toprevent the arts from becoming merely atool. Art as instrument would have to beused with adequate precaution, so thatit is not damaged in the process.

ENDNOTES

1. LORBLANCHET, MICHEL (ed.). 1988. Rock art in the Old World. Papers presented inSymposium A of the AURA Congress, Darwin (Australia). Indira Gandhi NationalCentre for the Arts, New Delhi 1992, p. iii.

2. STITES, RAYMOND S. 1940. The Arts and Man. McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.New York. p. 154

3. http://kalarte.com/india/ra-c/ra-ctext.html Kalarte Gallery: India Par(paintings on cloth) from RajasthanThe Rajasthani par (sometimes spelled phad) is a painting on cloth that is avisual accompaniment to a ceremony involving the singing and recitation ofthe deeds of folk hero-deities in Rajasthan. Pabuji ki Pars depict exploits fromthe life of the folk hero Pabuji Rathor. The legends are painted on longrectangular cloths that may be 35 feet long by 5 feet wide. The bard-priestknown as bhopa recites incidents describing the exploits of Pabuji from theepic and is assisted by his wife and son or another person who points to thescenes on the par about which he is singing.

4. http://www.accu.or.jp/ich/en/arts/A_IND7.html AsiaPacific Database onIntangible Cultural Heritage Purulia Chhau is a vibrant and powerful folk danceform with an inclination towards theatre. The use of mask in the dance makes

20 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

it more attractive for the audience. The use of masks in this form of Chhau,remains to be its focal point even today. The making of these masks is anindependent art altogether. It needs a gifted artist to visualise the mask andthen give shape to it.

5. The Siddhis are a unique community settled along the coast of Gujarat inBharuch, Bhavnagar, Junagarh and Surat. Descendants of migrants who werebrought here in the 12th century from Africa, the Siddhi still retain their nativesense of rhythm and fluid grace. Dressed in grass skirts and adorned withpeacock feathers, they perform the Dhamal on the eve of the urs of theirprophet Baba Gaur. As the dance gains tempo the dancers perform variousfeats of skill. The climax of the performance culminates in the Siddhis tossingcoconuts in air only to break them on their heads. They even walk on fire.

6. Teyyam is a ritualistic dance in Kerala With its rare and fantastic make-upand costume, lively foot work, gymnastic fervour and ritualistic vitality itrepresents the folk life of Kerala.

7 Followers of Kabeer, who sing his verses.8. http://orissagov.nic.in/e-magazine/Orissareview/nov2004/englishPdf/

raghurajpur-craftvillage.pdf.The patachitra as the folk painting of Orissa is called has a history of greatantiquity. Raghurajpur, a small village in the Puri district, is known for itspatachitra artists and has therefore made a unique place for itself on thecultural map of India. They exhibit the use of strong lines and striking colourson pieces of treated cloth, dried palm leaves or paper painted by the chitrakaras.The paintings depict themes of Indian mythology.

9. This is the art of singing out a narrative giving, it a balladic structure. It is therecital of a mythological story or a folk tale.

10. http://indiaheritage.org/perform/folk_pandavani.htmPandavani is the form of story-telling belonging to Chhatisgarh, which servesas a means of both entertaining and educating the people. It narrates thestory of the five Pandava brothers (protagonists of the epic Mahabharata). Ateam of Pandavani performers consists of one main narrator-singer and oneor two musician-cum-singers, who play on the tabla and the harmonium. Themain narrator-singer holds a tambura (stringed musical instrument), decoratedwith small bells and peacock feathers in one hand and kartal (a pair of cymbals)on the other.

11. Vatsyayan, Kapila Traditions of Indian Folk Dance Indian Book Company, NewDelhi, 1976 (pg. 9).

Constructivism and the Pedagogy of Education for Peace 21

Constructivism and the Pedagogy ofEducation for Peace

A Reflection on School Education Curriculum Reform(NCF–2005)

SAROJ PANDEY*

Abstract

This paper has been developed against the backdrop of National CurriculumFramework – 2005, which envisages major paradigm shift from behaviouristapproach to learning to constructivist approach that lays stress on the personalexperiences of learner in the process of knowledge construction. The role of teacherin this approach has shifted from the transmitter of knowledge to facilitator ofknowledge. The NCF – 2005 also emphasises on education for peace, not as apart of value education as traditionally been integrated in schools, but, as anindependent value in itself. The paper highlights the implication of this paradigmshift in the approach towards learning for promoting the culture of peace as, both,the constructivist approach and peace education are associated with the humanisticphilosophy which is dedicated to developing more mature and self-directedlearner – a pre-requisite for living together. To develop a culture of peace, thepedagogy of education needs to be broad, diverse and oriented towards lifelonglearning. Active listening, problem-solving, and conflict resolution skills help ininculcating feeling of living together, which are also basic to the constructivist wayto learning. Therefore, the epistimological shift suggested in the NCF – 2005provides greater opportunity to promote the culture of peace than ever before.

*Reader, DTEEE, NCERT. New Delhi.

Peace has been one of the most desirednecessities of human life since timeimmemorial. Since the advent oforganised society human beings havestrived for it, and are even more unitedtoday in their quest for peace, harmony

and a better quality of life. A strong needis being felt by educationists,philosophers, scientists and politicalleaders to rejuvenate the human values,which may bring long lasting peace onthis planet. The insistence of Delor’s

22 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

report (1996) on Learning to live togetheras the central pillar of education is theindication that education must be gearedto promote a culture of peace, tolerance,democratic values, human rights andduties among students. The NationalCurriculum Framework – 2005, stronglyadvocates education for peace at alllevels of schools.

Peace, however is an elusive concepthaving different interpretations indifferent cultures as well as differentconnotations for the spheres in whichpeaceful processes are applied. It rangesfrom inner pace to outer peace.Consequently, the interpretation ofpeace ranges from absence of war, andsociety without structural violence toliberation from exploitation and injusticeof any kind, ecological balance andconservation and peace of mind, etc.Education for pace therefore includes avariety of issues like human rightseducation, environmental education,international education, conflictresolution education and developmenteducation, etc.

A review of programmes on educationfor peace in different countries indicatesthat they differ considerably in terms ofideology, objectives, emphasis, curricula,content and practices, etc. for instance,in Australia, education for peace focuseson challenging ethnocentrism, culturalchauvinism and violence and promotingcultural diversity, nuclear disarmament,and conflict resolution (Burns, 1985,Lawson and Hutchinson, 1992). Whilein Japan it targets issues of nucleardisarmament, militarism and the natureof responsibility for acts of violenceperformed in the past (Murakami, 1992).In South America, education for peace

addresses structural violence, humanrights and economic inequality (Garcia,1984; Rivera, 1978) and in the UnitedStates, it is often concerned withprejudice, violence and environmentalissues (Harris, 1996, Stomfay-Satitz,1993).

In India education for peaceprogrammes have traditionally beenconcerned with promoting certain corevalues. Mahatma Gandhi envisaged anon-violent society, which would be freefrom exploitation of any kind, and canbe achieved through the instrument ofeducation. In Gandhian concept of peace-truth, non-violence, self-suffering andmeans and end relationships areimportant. The educational policies of thecountry lay stress on combative role ofeducation in eliminating obscurantism,religious fanaticism, violence,superstition and fatalism, andpromote some core values such asIndia’s common cultural heritage,egalitarianism, democracy, secularism,equality of sexes, observance of smallfamily norms and inculcation of scientifictemper, etc. Peace and living togetherhave been integral part of Indian way ofliving and manifested in its Constitutionthrough various articles. It firmly believesthat inculcation of certain values amongyounger generation would help them toexist in the dynamic socio-cultural fabricwith peace, harmony and prosperity.This is the reason why all commissionsand committees on education in India,like, the Radha Krishnan Commission(1948-49), Mudaliar Commission(1952-53), Sri Prakash Commission(1959), Kothari Commission (1964-66),Sampurnanad Commission (1961),Rammurti Committee (1992) and Chavan

Constructivism and the Pedagogy of Education for Peace 23

Committtee (1999), etc. make importantrecommendations for incorporation ofvalue education at all levels of education.Consequently, the National CurriculumFrameworks of 1975, 1988 and 2000 hadadopted a value-oriented approach tointegration of peace concerns ineducation.

A major shift in this approach iswitnessed in the National CurriculumFramework – 2005, which considers thatvalue education is subsumed in Educationfor pace, but is not identical with it. TheNational Focus Group on PeaceEducation constituted in the context ofNCF–2005 in its Position Paper onEducation for Peace says, “Peace is acontextually appropriate and peda-gogically gainful point of coherence forvalues. Peace concretises the purpose ofvalues and motivates their internalisation.Without such a framework, the integrationof values into the learning process remainsa non-starter. Education for peace is, thus,the ideal strategy for contextualsing andoperationalsing value education” (p.1).While accepting the traditional approachof integration of various peace relatedvalues and concern in school curricula,it further adds, that, education for peacemust be a concern that permeates theentire school life – curriculum, co-curriculum, classroom environment,school management, teacher pupilrelationship, teaching-learningprocesses, and the entire range of schoolactivities. Clearly the NCF – 2005 is morevocal and direct towards the need ofpromoting peace through education thanthe earlier curriculum reform attemptswhere the concept of peace wassubsumed in value education andtherefore peace was considered one of

the five core values that were promotedthrough education

The Constructivist pedagogy andNCF – 2005

Besides the thrust on education forpeace instead of value education, theNCF (2005) can also be distinguishedfrom earlier frameworks in theepistemological approach adopted foreducation of learners. The earlierbehaviourist approach to learning hasbeen replaced by the thrust onconstructivist based learning. Theconstructivist epistemology is based onthe premise that learning does notinvolve discovering the reality, butconstructing the reality.

According to the constructivisttheory, knowledge is being activelyconstructed by the individual andlearning is an adoptive process based onthe experiences of individual (Mayer,1992: Hendry, 1996, 1996). Therefore,learning is not mere absorption ofknowledge and learner is no longercontrolled respondent to stimuli as in thebehaviourist approach (Jonassen, 1999:Perkins, 1991a) but is considered as‘already a scientist’ (Solomon, 1994,p. 16) who actively constructs learningwhile trying to make sense of the worldthrough his own experiences, goals,curiosities and beliefs. Knowledgeaccording to constructivist epistemologycannot be transferred intact from oneindividual to another and therefore,learning and teaching cannot besynonymous: we can teach, even well,without having students learning. Whatcan be the better example of it than thepresent school system in the countrywhere in spite of all teaching-learning at

24 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

schools the learning outcomes ofstudents both at the cognitive andpsycho-emotional levels are cause ofconcern? The mushrooming growth ofcoaching centres, rising number offailure in examinations and alarminglevels of stress among studentsmanifested in the form of suicide,violence against others, and otherdisruptive activities are indication of theinability of our education system to relate

the school knowledge to real lifeexperiences and adapt to the needs ofvarious demanding situations.

A basic premise of constructivism isthat individuals live in their own worldof personal and subjective experiencesand built new knowledge on the basis oftheir previous experiences, rather thannew knowledge being imposed fromoutside. The role of teacher, therefore,undergoes a major transformation from

Learning Traditional (Behaviourist)Learning is a change inbehaviour brought outthrough selective reinforce-ment of response. It is aproduct and external entity.

Knowledge Passed on, transmitted,reproducible, and linear.

Pedagogy Teacher centred● Evaluation & assessment

of set knowledge● Practising, listening,

reproducing● All students do the same

tasks

Motivation ● Extrinsic, grade focus

Teacher ● Imparter of knowledge● Asks questions● Explains concepts● Superior to learners

Learners ● are objects that learn● Passive listeners● Rarely ask questions

beyond seeking clarificationof instructions

TABLE 1

Changing Epistemology of Learning

ConstructivistLearning is a process ofsubjective construction ofknowledge based onpersonal experience oflearner.

Reciprocally developed co-constructed, builds onprior- knowledge, spiral.

● Learner centred coopera-tive and experiential

● Doing, stating, theorising● Range of possible

responses● Tasks vary among

students

● Intrinsic, Learning focus

● Facilitator, guide● Raises questions● Facilitates students

theorising● A learner among learners

● Co-inquires● Active partners in learning● Raise questions

Constructivism and the Pedagogy of Education for Peace 25

the imparter of knowledge to facilitatorof conditions, which will help learner inthe process of knowledge construction.This changing concept of knowledge,learner, and teacher has been presentedin Table 1.

Clearly a major shift can be seen inthe concept of learner from constructivistperspective. She/he is not a passiverecipient of information rather she/hecan manipulate, interpret and makesense of her/his environment usingexperiences. In this way she/he canconstruct an understanding to help her/him achieve her/his goals (Duffy andKirkley 2004) The constructivist basedpedagogical models include collaborativelearning techniques, discussion forums,and jurisprudential models to clarifyconcepts and facilitate learning.

According to the constructivistapproach, the instruction centres on theexperiences of learners. Meaningfulunderstanding occurs when studentsdevelop effective ways to resolveproblems; therefore, instructionalcontents cannot be specified. Theconstructivist teacher, therefore, cannotbe effective by just following the teachingmethod that relies heavily on breakingcontent into smaller components ofobservable and achievable behaviours,which are measurable immediately afterthe instruction. Instead, theconstructivist teacher assumes thatevery learner has a unique perspective,so the notion of the ‘average’ learner isrejected (Bednar et al, 1992). It providesa major shift from all learners learningthe same things’ to ‘different learnerslearning different things’. Pre-specifiedcontent and objectives are not congruentwith the constructivist view, instead, the

objectives emerge and are realisedthrough learner’s search for authentictasks via critical thinking, reflection, andproblem-solving approach. Therefore,the teacher must confront students withinformation and experiences thatchallenge their misconceptions and offeropportunities for this reflective processand augment their metacognitivecapabilities. In such a situation learnersare more likely to view the problem witha greater sense of ownership. Accordingto Cey (2001), authentic learning occurswhen instruction is designed to facilitate,stimulate, and recreate real lifecomplexities and occurrences. Theguiding principles of constructivism are:

● Posing problems of emergingrelevance to students.

● Structuring learning aroundprimary concepts.

● Seeking and valuing students’points of view.

● Adapting curriculum to addressstudents’ suppositions.

● Assessing learning in the context ofteaching.

This process, therefore, is veryeffective in negotiating conflicts andfinding solutions acceptable to theconflicting parties.

The NCF – 2005 provides wide scopefor utilisation of the personal experiencesof learners in day-to-day schoolactivities. Expressing concern over lackof opportunities for students in thepresent system to share their personalexperiences, the NCF (2005) stronglyrecommends “the curriculum must enablechildren to find their voices, nurture theircuriosity to do things, to ask question andto pursue investigations, sharing and

26 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

integrating their experiences with schoolknowledge rather than their ability toreproduce external knowledge (p.13)”. Itmotivates schools to “provideopportunities to students to question,enquire, debate, reflect and arrive atconcepts to create new ideas (p.18)”.These are the important steps of valueclarification and conflict resolutionprocess also, which help in removingapprehensions, mistrust and doubtsabout others and encourages livingtogether. Active listening, criticalthinking, problem-solving and conflictresolution are the skills emphasised inthe context of education for peace, whichare also the thrust of constructivist wayof learning and promoted in NCF – 2005.It strongly feels that “schools must bemarked by the values of equality, socialjustice and respect for diversity, as wellas of the dignity and rights of children”(p.81).

Expressing concern over the neglectof child’s local context in the presentschool practices the NCF (2005)recommends “we emphasise thesignificance of conceptualising educationor situating learning in the child’s world,and of making the boundary between theschool and its natural and socialenvironment porous. This is not onlybecause the local environment and child’sown experiences are the best entry pointsinto the study of disciplines of knowledge,but more so because the aim of knowledgeis to connect with the world” (p.30).

A central strategy for constructivismis the creation and encouragement ofcollaborative learning environment,which provides opportunities to learnerto develop, share, compare andunderstand multiple perspectives of an

issue. Conscious efforts are made by theteacher under constructivist approachto cultivate non-threatening learningenvironment (Watt and Bentley, 1987)that facilitates students’ knowledgeconstruction process. Teachers in thissituation are required to display respectand care for students’ learning andstudents knowledge construction processis facilitated by encouraging them todiscuss, explain and evaluate their ideasand procedures. The NCF – 2005 providesopportunities for such learningexperiences to learners – right from thepre-primary stage to higher secondarystage. It lays stress on problem-solving,dramatisation and role-play, etc, whichremain under explored strategies ofteaching in the present system. Itrecommends “in order making the processof learning participative, there is a need toshift from mere imparting of information todebate and discussion. This approach tolearning will keep both the learner and theteacher alive to social realities” (p. 54).

Triangular Relationship betweenNCF – 2005, Constructivism andPedagogy of Peace Education

Education for peace is fundamentallydynamic, interdisciplinary, andmulticultural in nature and aims atdeveloping knowledge, skills andattitudes needed to achieve and sustainglobal culture of peace. Promoting theculture of peace calls for developingskills among learners for active listening,problem-solving, and conflict resolution.These skills need to be developed earlyin learners and nurtured continuously.The personal experiences of learners,therefore, have to be honoured andtreated as a base for dialogue and new

Constructivism and the Pedagogy of Education for Peace 27

learning. It is essential to note at thispoint, that, when we talk about peace weexpect at least three basic conditions –communication, cooperation, andconfidence – the process of making thesethree conditions work is peace building.Therefore, peace is like the bridge thatfacilitates the process of communicationand helps in developing closerrelationship between people. Educationfor peace does not teach students whatto think, but rather how to thinkcritically. In the process, its holistic andparticipatory approach draws more fromthe constructivist than traditionalcurriculum designs. It aims not toreproduce but to transform, and is acontinuous process dedicated to theenormous task of improving the spiritual,as well as material quality of life ofpeople. Both constructivism and Peaceeducation are associated with thehumanistic philosophy, which isdedicated to developing more mature andself-directed learner who is conscious ofhis/her rights as well as the rights ofothers and his/her duty towards others,and emphasises lifelong learning. Thepromotion of culture of peace calls for atransformation of motivationalorientations of students from competitionand conflict to cooperation and mutualunderstanding (Unfortunately the wholeethos of our existing educationalinstitutions is more geared towardscompetition which encourages a win loseorientation to conflict and a strongmotivation to win which fuels conflict).In such cooperative orientation, thesense of interdependent communality ofinterest, mutual understanding,tolerance, cooperative conflictmanagement and resolution are

encouraged through effectivecommunication, problem-solving, andnegotiating behaviour. All thesepedagogies help in knowledgeconstruction; development of deeperunderstanding and insight into theproblem and have been emphasised inNCF. Education for peace represents ahumanising process whereby individualsovercome their violent instincts. Itteaches respect for life and livingtogether, it helps to develop amongstudents a positive self-image, sense ofdignity and self worth, sense ofresponsibility for self and others, and acapacity to trust others.

The learning process in education forpeace is understood primarily asexperiential and activity-based ratherthan by rote memorisation or byrepetitive conditioning. We shall be veryclear in our minds that we cannotindoctrinate peace. The learning modelsfor peace are logically built on theassumption of human nature, i.e.learners are sentient beings that activelyparticipate in the learning experience;they also learn through reflecting cases,reading and examples (J.Synott, 2005).To put it precisely they learn, both by,practical engagement and interaction, aswell as also, by processes of reflectionand abstraction. Clearly the existingteaching-learning strategies followed inour schools which reduce learners topassive listeners and emphasise rotememorisation do not fit into the pedagogyof peace education, instead,constructivism where there is strongemphasis on behavioural skills, such as,conflict resolution (Carter, 2000;Chetkon- Yanoov,2003 ), dialogue (Freierand Sharl,1987) and participatory

28 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

processes that are central to learningexperiences, is more appropriate forpromoting peace. The NationalCurriculum Framework – 2005 promisesideal situation for practising thesepedagogies which are directed towardsdeveloping an independent, mature andreflective learner by providingopportunities to learners to question,debate, reflect, and arrive at concepts orcreate new ideas. The guiding principlesfor curriculum development of NCF are:

● Connecting knowledge to life outsideschools;

● Ensuring that learning is shiftedaway from rote methods;

● Enriching the curriculum to providefor overall development of childrenrather than remain textbookcentric;

● Making examination more flexibleand integrated with classroom life;and nurturing an overridingidentity informed by caringconcerns within the democraticpolity of the country.

These principles provide ample scopeand opportunity for schools and teachers

to design curricula to give greaterownership to learners in their process oflearning.

Clearly a triangular relationship canbe established between constructivism;education for peace and NCF – 2005.With emphasis on learner centreed,learner directed, collaborative,supported with teacher scaffolding andauthentic tasks it provides suitableopportunity to promote culture of peaceand tolerance amongst students thanever before. Though promoting peaceis very complex and difficult task,especially, in the present local and globalscenario where violation of humanrights, violence, intolerance, andfundamentalism is increasing day-by-day and has become an order of the day,nevertheless it does not discourage theefforts to enable learners to processvarious information rationally and act asresponsible citizens of the State than beingcarried away by emotions and narrowcaste, class, regional, and religiousorientations. National CurriculumFramework – 2005 expects developingsuch mature learners throughconstructivist learning strategies.

REFERENCES

BEDNAR, A.K., D. CUNNINGHAM, T.M. DUFFY, and J.D. PERRY. 1992. Theory into practice:How do we link? In T.M. Duffy and D.H. Jonassen (Eds.) Constructivism and theTechnology of Instruction: A Conservation. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,Hillsdale.17-34.

BURNS, R.J. 1985. Teachers and peace education in Australia: whose task?In C. Alger and J.Balazs (Eds.) Conflict and Crisis of International Order(pp. 467-476). Centre for Peace Research Coordination at the Hungarian Academyof Sciences, Budapest.

CARTER, C. 2002. Conflict resolution at school: building compassionate communities.Second alternatives, 21(1) (Special Issue Peace Education for New Centaury), p. 3-24.

Constructivism and the Pedagogy of Education for Peace 29

CHETKOW-YANOOV, B. 2003. Conflict Resolution skill can be taught. In W.Wintersteiner,V. Spajic-Vrkas and R.Teustch (Ed.). Peace Education in Europe: Visions andExperiences. Waxman, New York. p. 84-103.

CEY, T. 2001. Moving towards constructivist classroom. http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/ceyt/ceyt.htm.

FREIER, P. and I. SHOR. 1987. A Pedagogy of liberation. Macmillian Education, London.GARCIA, C. 1984. Latin America traditions and perspectives. International Review of

Education. 29(3). 38-48.HARRIS. I.M. 1996. From world peace to peace in the hood. Journal for the Just and

Caring Education, 2. 378-398.HENDRY, G.D. 1996. Constructivism and educational practice. Australian Journal of

Education, 40(1). 19-45.JONASSEN, D.H. 1992. Evaluating constructivist learning. In T. Duffy and D. Jonassen

(Eds.). Constructivism and the Technology of Instruction: A Conservation. LawrenceErlbaum, Hillsdale, N.J. 137-148.

LAWSON,M and F. HUTCHINSON.1992. Peace education in Australia: The legacy of the1980s. Peace Environment and Education, 3 (1). 22-32.

MURAKAM, T. 1992. Peace education in Britain and Japan. Office of Sociology ofEducation, University of Education, Kyoto.

MAYER, R.E. 1992. Cognition and instruction; Their historic meeting withineducational psychology. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84. 405-412.

PERKINS, D.N. 1991a. Technology meets constructivism: Do they make a marriage?Educational Technology, 31(5). 19-23.

RIVERA, D. 1978. A brief approach to the violence of knowledge. International PeaceResearch Newsletter, 16 (3). 38-48.

STOMFAY-STITZ, A. 1993. Peace Education in America, 1828-1990. Scarecrow, Mutechen,N.J.

SOLOMAN, J. 1994. The rise and fall of constructivism. Studies in Science Education,23, 1-19.

National Council of Educational Research and Training. 2005. National CurriculumFramework. NCERT, New Delhi.

SYNOTT, J. 2005. Peace Education as an educational paradigm: review of changingfield using an old measure. Journal of Peace Education, 2(1). 3-16.

WATTS, M. and D. BENTLEY. 1987. Constructivism in the classroom: Enablingconceptual change by words and deeds. British Journal of Educational Research,13,p 1-19.

30 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Religion, Education and Peace*RADHIKA HERZERGER**

Abstract

The world’s religions unanimously talkabout peace, but when religion becomesa source of violence the people must takestock of the situation and seize theresponsibility for re-examining its idealsof peace, especially in a country such asIndia, the majority of whose populationis religious. Equally important is theobligation to examine these idealsconjointly with the actual, on the groundviolence. Of greatest importance is theneed to embed the continually renewedideal of peace into different aspects ofeducation, into both the implicit and

Religion today has become an easy outlet through which people vent their hatredand thus become a source of violence ironically against its very essence of universallove and peace. Since hatred and violence are rooted in greed, turn up in the mostinsidious forms within the individual self, education has an important role ininculcating the values of peace among the students while unlearning greed andaggression. The presentation espouses the educational philosophy of JidduKrishnamurti’s and the Rishi Valley School, a project guided by his philosophy topromote the culture of peace. In the wake of the growing problems brought withthe assertion of renewed identities founded on religion and also the various problemsresulting from human negligence, for example, the degrading eco-system, etc.Krishnamurti’s vision could be translated into reality of today.

* This is a written text of a lecture delivered by Ms Radhika Herzberger on First ZakirHusain Lecture at RIE Mysore on 19 January 2007. It has been published by the NCERTin the form of a booklet.

** Director, Rishi Valley Education Centre, Madanapalle, Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh.

explicit curriculum of study. It is aneducator’s primary responsibility toreconstitute schools in such a way thatpeace becomes an overriding presencewithin its premises. Indeed if peace is toaccompany schooling there has to beinterdependence between the ideals ofpeace and the reality of violence, the gapsthat divide them cancelled out. At thisdifficult moment in human history, theburden of carrying out this programmefalls on the state, which designseducational policy; on administrators,who wield direct authority on the ground;

Religion, Education and Peace 31

on teachers, who exercise authority andon students, who stand at the bottom ofthis heavy superstructure.

The need for continually re-examining the notion of peace isparticularly crucial to the enterprise ofeducation today because the survival ofcivilisation depends on good education.Current scientific research predictscataclysmic events following globalwarming – rising sea levels will graduallyinundate coastal cities, wipe out islandstates, displace millions of people. Socialscientists tell us that violent conflicts areinevitable in such a scenario. Whichcountry will provide refuge to theMaldives population if their island homedrowns?

The full impact of failing naturalecosystems will be felt by the generationsthat we educate today; it is therefore onlyright that we take measures to avert thisgrim future with intelligence. Humanbeings are products of culture as well asnature. To avert tragedy and to live inpeace with each other and with nature,humanity will have to discover a newbalance within itself. The presentgeneration of educators needs tocultivate a long vision, and to create aculture that supports nature instead offurther ravaging it.

Other questions relevant to this lineof thinking about peace help enlarge theframework for examining the concept. Arewar and peace opposites, and is peacemerely the absence of conflict? Sinceviolence, with roots in greed, turns up inthe most insidious forms, globally, locally,systemically, and within the individualself, where does one begin to address theissue of peace? These are questions Ihave inherited from the founder of Rishi

Valley School where I have worked foralmost twenty-five years. In the courseof this presentation I will focus on theissues of war and peace in the context ofeducation. The aim of education at thispoint in human history, as I see it, is toestablish a culture of peace in schools.For me peace means more than theabsence of overt violence; I look upon itas a living presence that demandschange and renewal of the human spirit.

The view that the education of theyoung is filtered through culturedominates current thinking ineducation. Robin Alexander puts it thisway –

… drawing on the insights initiated byVygotsky and Bruner and consolidated bylater cognitive and cultural psychologists,we have replaced the view of thedeveloping child as a ‘lone scientist’, wholearns by interacting with materials ... byone of learning as necessarily as a socialprocess, In this, significant others –parents, teachers, peers provide themediation or intervention which scaffoldsand takes forward the child’sunderstanding’ (Alexander 2006 p.15).

Jerome Bruner further maintainsthat educators emphasise the centralrole for ‘narrative’, by which he meansstories, songs, drama, fiction that givecohesion to a culture, and which helpindividual students ‘find an identitywithin that culture’. ‘Knowledge,’ hesays, ‘is not simply thinking and theresult of intellectual activity andexperience, it is the ‘internalising of toolsthat are used within the child’s culture(Bruner, 1996).

‘How one conceives of education, wehave finally come to recognise, is afunction of how one conceives of the

32 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

culture and its aims, professed andotherwise’ (Bruner 1996: ix-x).

Bruner’s separating out of what aculture professes and what it allows inpractice creates spaces for questions,analysis as well as the liberty to shapeculture. Given the environmental crisis,education will have to create structuresthat undo present attitudes to natureand create a culture that recognises andhonours human dependence on soundecological systems. The future ofhumanity depends on teaching cominggenerations to listen and learn fromnature, on models of growth that areecologically sound, on repairing thedamage done by their forefathers tonatural systems. In short, educatorsneed to acknowledge that a radicalchange is necessary and that attitudeswill have to change, cultures liberatedfrom the violence they implicitly contain.It is certain that with the onset ofmodernity, particular sub-cultures haveto accommodate tenets and normsbeyond those that are an organic part oftheir own history. Universal principles,such as, respect for nature, equal rightsfor men and women are examples of theseprinciples that culture groups are obligedto uphold. The pertinent questions inthis context remain: whose stories,whose songs and theatre shall we, in acomplex culture like India’s, teach? Andwhat are the cultural practices andvalues that need to be unlearned? Andhow is this unlearning to be effected?Given the vast religious, class and castedivides in this country, how we in Indiaunderstand the word ‘culture’ is neithereasily described and nor universallyacknowledged.

India, with its myriad groupscompeting to assert their separateidentities, defies an educator’sintellectual compass; and so the presenttop down formalistic approach that offersabstractions in the form of nationalheroes and modern developmentsuccesses in competitive contexts thatreward aggression. The official line thatIndia stands for ‘unity in diversity’ maybe a truth waiting to be born, if we educateour children to stand together in solidarityfor purposes that serve universalinterests while preserving differences.

Human societies can come togetherto solve global problems of speciesdepletion, soil erosion, air and waterpollution, and rebuild their relationshipto nature, if knowledge is united withvalues aimed at restoring ecosystemsback to health and the task of educationthen is not only to design curricula thatare Earth centred but also to teachstudents how to unlearn habits andworldviews born of greed and aggression.

My plan is to investigate theseconnected issues in two parts – I will firstdescribe an educational project in theinterior of south India, guided by thephilosophy of Jiddu Krishnamurti. Theattempt here will be to illustrate themanner in which one school haspromoted a culture of peace by applyingthe philosophy of its founder to addressthe complex issues of poverty andecological degradation that face the localpopulation. The second section willcontain an exposition of Krishnamurti’seducational philosophy. I will present himas a deep ecologist who explored thenature of intelligence and humaninteractions based on this intelligence.

Religion, Education and Peace 33

The unusual procedure of placingpractice before theory flows from featuresin Krishnamurti’s discourse that escapesystematic analysis. Krishnamurti didnot present his point of view in a clearexpository manner. He had doubts aboutphilosophy’s speculative programmes.He was an iconoclastic thinker whofashioned a discourse of his own, thechief purpose of which was to challengeboth the intellectual and emotional pre-suppositions of his audiences. In Kafka’smoving words, his books and talks servedas ‘an ice-axe to break the seas frozeninside our soul.’ For him, theory andpractice were interdependent, meant tosupport each other: peace was a livingspiritual presence, which had its ownaction. One might, followingAbhinavagupta’s commentary on theDhvanyaloka, describe Krishnamurti’sunderstanding peace as an aestheticflavour (santarasa) that hangs overplaces where all life is welcomed, andwhose inhabitants abjure violence, andseek to live a life of dedicated to doingthe right thing.

The role of culture in building identitytook several of our modern religiousthinkers into the past. Unlike SwamiVivekananda and Sri Aurobindo, whoattempted to create an Indianrenaissance through spiritual revival ofHinduism, Krishnamurti distancedhimself entirely from the nationalisticspirit they had espoused and from thetraditional vocabulary they used.Instead, in an entirely new departure fora religious thinker, he embracedmodernity — its sceptical spirit, itsemphasis on everyday life, and its focuson the individual as opposed to thegroup. Holding on the one hand that the

process of modernisation was inevitable,he denied on the other thatpermissiveness, nihilism and extremeforms of relativism were certain to followin its wake. Krishnamurti sought toembed his vision of a ‘good human being’in the practice of education.

Rishi Valley School was establishedby a philosopher of Indian origin who waseducated with some pomp and ceremonyby Annie Besant and her internationalgroup of Theosophists in Europe.Intended for the great universities ofEurope, Oxford, Cambridge, or Sorbonne,Krishnamurti’s academic record wasdotted with failures. By the time he leftEurope for America in 1922 he hadforgotten his native Telugu. In 1922,having abandoned his scholastic career,he crossed the Atlantic and arrived atthe Western coast of the Americansubcontinent, in Berkeley. He wasdazzled by the place, by its sheer beautyas well as the sense of equality heperceived in the academic community.It seemed to him that the New World hadcreated a people who transcended all‘odious distinctions’ of class, race, andgender, so endemic in the Old World. Theyoung man’s thoughts travelling to India,he wrote, ‘Oh! For such a University ofCalifornia to be transplanted to India’. Ifhis native country had something to giveto such a place of learning, it lay in thegift of being able to ‘create the properreligio-scholastic atmosphere.’

Not long afterwards this visit toCalifornia, the search for a place to locatehis educational institution ledKrishnamurti to south India, to the littletown of Madanapalle where he was born.Twenty-five kilometres from there, in asmall valley carved out from the

34 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

scattered hills, on the edge of the MysorePlateau, he located the landscape wherehe hoped to lay the foundations of the‘religio-scholastic atmosphere’ he hadnot found in California. The place wasdry scrubland prone to drought, evenfamine, inhabited by stonecutters,shepherds and cattle farmers.

Sacred shrines built by these ancientpeople stood scattered all over the valley.Under the shade of neem trees, four thinslabs of stone not more than a foot highare arranged to form a rectangular spacethat encloses mother goddess stones; thegoddess is propitiated with bloodsacrifice of cocks and, during prolongeddroughts, with goats.

The goddess Gangamma has a largerwhitewashed temple. The majestic neemtree under which it stood was destroyedby a storm a few years ago and replacedby a Durga seated on a lion. Her step-well, so beautifully lined with dressedstones, remains dry throughout the year.

A classical temple to Krishna situatedin the only traditional village Thettu givesthe valley a hint of classical antiquity. Itwas not the temple, however, that drewKrishnamurti to Thettu Valley, but athree-hundred-year-old Banyan tree,which dominated the stark scene and thewooded hills that stood like sentinels atthe western end of the valley. Thedisjunction between the primeval Thettulandscape from the urban vitality of agreat university in the New World couldnot have been more complete.

In the 70 years, since the land wasacquired for the school, the landscapehas changed. The track that encirclesthe valley, where shepherds drove theirflock of sheep and goat to distant forests,is now broader. It is still used by

herdsmen, descendants of the samepeople, but also by rattling lorries andbuses. A part of this road is paved. Thereis a small row of peepal trees on eitherside of the road, but the virgin forests onthe hills are slowly disappearing; duringthe summer months goatherds trimthese trees for their flock; local womenhave to walk long distances for fuel.There are many bore wells belonging tothe school and the more prosperouslandowners. The school and its urbanpopulation now dominate the valley. TheValley telescopes time, modernity mingleswith many layers of tradition. As we shallsee it represents in miniature thelayering of cultures, which is a hallmarkof social development in the past.

D. D. Kosambi, that doyen of Indianhistorians, more than fifty years agoobserved that the telescoping of time, inother words, the contemporaneousexistence of many stages of humandevelopment from the past is a generalbut unique feature of India’s history.According to Kosambi, India is a countryof “long survivals”: ‘People of the atomicage rub elbows with those of thechalcolithic,’ he observed as he travelledon the Deccan Queen in the early fiftiesfrom his home in Pune to the TataInstitute of Fundamental Research inBombay, (now Mumbai) and went on toprove that the ancient Buddhist cavesalong the Western Ghats followed themigratory patterns set out by oldergenerations of Neolithic tribesmen.

The school established in 1931,consisted of English-speaking, fee-paying students from India’s successfulmiddle classes. Gordon Pierce, theprincipal of Rishi Valley and founder ofthe Public School Movement in India,

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enlisted Rishi Valley into the elitist bodyin the Fifties. Yet, from the very beginningthe Rishi Valley landscape lacked somefundamental qualifications of Indianresidential public schools. It is notlocated in the temperate zone, in hillstations made fashionable during thecolonial period. Though standing at analtitude of 2500 feet, it was an area inRayalseema, where drought turned thesurroundings brown, the bald graniterocks radiated the sun’s heat, andvillagers walked with their cows throughthe school campus. India’s colonial pastwas nowhere present in the landscapeKrishnamurti chose. And yet thestudents who attended his school wereproducts of several generations that hadbenefited from the colonial presence.

The consequences of educatingstudents in an ivory tower oblivious tothe world’s suffering remained withKrishnamurti as the school’s populationin due course increased to roughly fivehundred inhabitants, students born andbred in the urban centres of India andwell-educated teachers from some of thebest institutions in the country.Krishnamurti’s talks to students werefilled with sharp portraits of village lifemeant to challenge students. ‘Have youever’, he asked them, ‘observed the poorpeople, the peasants, the villagers, anddone something kind—done itspontaneously, naturally, out of yourown heart, without waiting to be toldwhat to do?’ (LA, p. 29).

If we were to educate studentswithout regard to the poverty in theValley we were in danger of falling underthe category of omnivores, as defined bythe ecological historians Madhav Gadgiland Ramachandra Guha (Gadgil and

Guha, 1995). The classification of India’spopulation into omnivores, ecologicalsystems people and ecological refugeesis based on the comparativeconsumption patterns and access toresources of the urban and rural eliteand the urban and rural poor. Nearly fourfifths of the population of India are poor,either ecological people, dependent onnature’s dwindling resources orecological refugees forced out of their ownlocality by the encroaching industrialcivilisation. The majority of our fee-payingstudents and some of our teachers andadministrators belonged to Gadgil andGuha’s first category of omnivores.

The results of the urban-rural divideare best described in a recently publishedwork by Guha —

India is in many ways an economicdisaster zone; marked by high rate ofdeforestation, species loss, landdegradation, and air and water pollution.The consequences of this abuse havebeen chiefly borne by the poor in thecountryside – peasants, tribals,fisherfolk, and pastoralists who haveseen their resources snatched away ordepleted by powerful economic interests(Guha, 2006, p. 232).

Narpat Jodha’s research in severaldryland districts of the country addsanother frame of reference to our view ofsurrounding village life. On the basis ofcomparative study of villages with vitalcommon property holdings, he concludesthat these shared resources supportbetween 15-25 per cent of income of thepoorer farmers and shepherds in dryregion. He makes out a strong case forgovernments to replenish CommonProperty Resources in the countryside,as they provide both food security and

36 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

additional employment. In a joint paperwith Anupam Bhatia, the authors mournthe systematic depletion of the commons‘closely associated with the depletion ofsocial capital, i.e. the community spiritand actions reflecting reciprocity, trust,shared values, net working and groupaction’ (Jodha and Bhatia, 1998).

The above writers place our locationa certain perspective that we had toaddress if education is to stand for thevalues of peace with justice.Krishnamurti, who did not by principlecreate a blueprint for any of his schools,leaving the implementation of his visionsto the school’s location and to the talentsof the people running it, concentrated histhought on the moral dimensions relatedto schooling. In typically metaphoricalfashion he warned those in charge of theschool against the tendency of anisolated educational institutionbecoming self-enclosed. ‘Don’t be acommunity,’ he admonished, ‘There issomething aggressive and self-centredabout them. Instead keep your doorsopen.’ A community has to define itself;self-definitions set up boundariesexcluding those who fall outside thedefined essence. Krishnamurti wantedhis school to keep its ̀ doors open’. Closeddoors and impenetrable walls are madeup of exclusive ideals, class and casteprejudice. Its structures are heldtogether by comparison, and the desireto dominate others; greed, envy and alust to dominate support groupconsciousness. He made the question,‘how should we live?’ central to hiseducational enterprise. How should weas individuals live and what should bethe school’s relations with itsneighbours? – these questions mouldedthe school for the past several decades.

The realisation that the directionKrishnamurti was setting for his schoolwent against the spirit of the present age,against parents’ urge to get the best fortheir children, against India’s aspirationsto become a global player was allpervasive. The following quotation froma very recent articulation of this trend,by a blue ribbon education commissionset up to re-think American educationreflects the educational policies inseveral countries, including our own.‘There is this growing mismatch,’ thereport says ‘between the demands of theeconomy and what our schools aresupplying.’

If we continue on our current course,the number of nations outpacing us in theeducation race continues to grow at its andcurrent rate, the American standard ofliving will steadily fall relative to thosenations, rich and poor, that are doing abetter job (The New York Times, December15, 2006).

The pervasive anxiety driving reformwas described earlier this year by thecolumnist Thomas Friedman:

Computers, fibber-optic cable and theInternet have levelled the economic playingfield, creating a global platform that moreworkers anywhere can now plug into andplay on. Capital will now flow faster thanever to tap the most productive talentwherever it is located, so every country isscrambling to upgrade its human talentbase (New York Times, March 24, 2006).

In such a climate of internationalcompetition, governments see invest-ment in education largely as a way ofenhancing the country’s GDP and byindividuals as commanding the bestinternational jobs. Earlier ideals ofliberty, equality and fraternity take aback seat in the nation’s priorities. The

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aims of education are dictated by theidea of a ‘knowledge society’ that catersto the knowledge-based economytowards which nations are racing. Thisis a business model of education whereknowledge as a commodity is to betraded.

The late Management Guru PeterDrucker predicted more than a decadeago that in a future world orderknowledge and information would beparamount. Both the conception of whatconstitutes knowledge and theyardsticks by which knowledge andvalues are to be measured, will be placedat the disposal of business.

The acquisition and distribution offormal knowledge will come to occupy theplace in the politics of the knowledgesociety which acquisition and distributionof property and income have occupiedin the two or three centuries which wehave come to call the Age of Capitalism(Drucker, 1994).

Peter Drucker readily acknowledgedthe dangers inherent in a future wherebusiness interests forge the yardsticksof knowledge and its value. How difficult,he admits, it will be for ‘the knowledgesociety to give decent incomes and withthem dignity and status to non-knowledge people... After all,’ heacknowledges, ‘knowledge workers willamount to no more than a large minorityof the workforce.’ (Ibid)

We, in India, need to pay particularattention to Peter Drucker’s dismissiveremarks about ‘non-knowledge people,’given that India’s impoverished villageshave a tradition steeped in culture, instories, songs, drama, fiction that, inJerome Bruner’s words, give cohesion toa culture, and that help individual

students ‘find an identity within thatculture.’

India may have the world’s largestilliterate population but the poor in Indiado not lack culture – poets like Kabir,Tukaram, Jayadeva and the great epicsare not the exclusive preserve of the welleducated; they are sung by poor weaversand itinerant bards; and the shadowpuppeteers of Andhra Pradesh reflect theclassical mural paintings at theLepakshi temple.Jodha additionallyargues in favour of a critical role oftraditional knowledge systems in themanagement of forest resources, and theharm produced by ‘marginalisation oftraditional knowledge, and imposition ofgeneralised solutions from above’ (Jodha,1998).

Unfortunately, the pressures ofmodernisation with its global vision andits lumbering bureaucracies, its drive foruniversal standards in elementaryschools set to the drum beat of nationalistideologies stamp out local, more ancientcultures and, in the process, alienatestudents from their ecologically soundwisdom, the complex patterns ofprotecting, sharing and conservingnatural resources developed overseveral hundred generations.

Jodha’s point that peasant andshepherd communities are not rootlesspeople, but could have a vital role in theunfolding scenario adds yet anotherdimension to our thinking about ourrural world, and helped structure thedirection of our work.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singhis well-aware of problems in thecountryside, the fact that income ratiowithin the urban and rural India hasrisen from 1:2 at the time of

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independence to 1:4 today. (Reportedin the financial pages of Asian Age,18 November, 2006). In his address toCambridge University worked throughthe consequence of a policy that has thepotential to ignore the basic interest of themajority of India’s population, he stated:

“The gap between the rich and thepoor is widening. This, coupled with theinability of the public sector to provideadequate and quality services in healthand education, and cater to the needs ofthe poor, is causing resentment andalienation. This is nurturing divisive forcesand putting pressure on the practice ofdemocracy. These are real and palpableconcerns and they cannot be ignored.Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest to you thatwe address these vital concerns bymaking globalisation an inclusive process.We need to work for inclusive globali-sation. This calls for a new global vision”.

The juxtaposition, which findsgraduates from the best educationalinstitutions in the country living side byside with ancient but impoverishedvillage settlements, provides a uniqueopportunity to work through a new globalvision based on J. Krishnamurti’sthought. For a start, our location in adegraded landscape brings to the peopleat Rishi Valley, students and teachersbelonging to India’s urban middleclasses, the reality of India and presentsa challenge of a long-range agenda forregeneration through education. Thatagenda has served to guide our effortsby teaching us to care for the earth, toshare our educational resources with ourneighbours, to conserve local species ofplants, and to help them rebuild greenspaces in their villages.

‘Rishi Valley is more than a school’,the founder once declared long ago. Inthis extended context of Rishi Valley’srelationship with its neighbours theFounder’s philosophy and the needs of adrought area with marginal farmers andshepherds have converged to create apromising model of integrateddevelopment through resource sharing.In this conception, the school is aresource centre for the neighbourhood.

In what follows I shall try to outline acase study of an educational project thatthrough its 75-year-old existence workedtowards a ‘global vision’ of an entirelydifferent order.

We have articulated the followingaims for educating teachers andstudents in our school. These goalsderived from Krishnamurti’s philosophy,are consonant with the times we live in.

● To awaken a sense of responsibilityfor the environment in teachers andstudents, by making them aware ofthe fragility of their environment.

● To create in students and teachersa sense of responsibility for otherhuman beings.

● To urge students to employ theexpertise they might acquire inscience to ‘repair’ the damage doneto the environment.

● To create a global outlook – theenvironment does not respectborders.

● To cultivate a sane attitude toIndia’s past.

● To orient students in cooperativelearning, rather than in competition.

● To create a sensibility that prizesharmony and quietude.

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● To convince students that goingagainst the tide of history is notimpossible.

Following through with these aimsand advancing Krishnamurti’s long-termperspective into the classroom requiredus to create our own study materials. Weneeded to create textbooks andworksheets that opened student’ssenses to nature, to the inter -connectedness between plant andanimal life and between nature andhuman livelihoods. It also meant seekinga fuller understanding of Indian culturein the larger context of human concerns.By extension, it meant creating a rightrelationship with India’s own pluralisticheritage, and cultivating an informeddetachment from the past. In pursuit ofsome of these goals, Rishi Valley iscontinuing to develop its own educationalmaterials in the areas of social science,ancient history, mathematics,environmental studies and ruraleducation.

The first major publication in thisnew series, Birds of Rishi Valley andRenewal of their Habitats, highlightedmany facets of our new directions ineducation. The book describes local andmigrant birds in relation to the severaldifferent habitats now found on campus.It explains the ecology of habitatformation and renewal and it seeks toshow how small scale conservation effortscan make a difference, in the landscapeand in the quality of our lives. A newstudy on insects is now planned.

The social studies texts haveoverlapping aims: to show that humanbeings in travelling from the Stone Ageinto modern times, have passed throughstages of technological development that

still characterise surviving cultures indifferent parts of India. Thus, even torelate meaningfully to the immediateenvirons of Rishi Valley, students haveto learn about an arid region inhabitedby shepherds and subsistence farmers,living in patterns that have existed sinceNeolithic times. The universals inhuman nature are not neglected. Here,Charles Darwin’s theory of humanorigins is brought in to destroy oldprejudices about race and caste, byteaching that human beings have acommon descent. The lesson fromDarwin is explicitly brought out in thetopics about prejudice.

History is becoming a contested fieldin many nations of the world. Theeducation scenario in India today reflectsthis frantic search for roots. Ourapproach seeks instead to impress onstudents the fundamental principles ofthe historian’s methodology, that ourknowledge of the past is never absolute,that new evidence can overturn the besthypotheses.

Above all we eschew the chauvinismin favour of the virtues of detachment.In the context of history, this faculty,which Krishnamurti’s thought shareswith ancient ideals of life, can play atruly restorative role in situatingstudents and teachers firmly in thepresent. To orient students in a broaderhistorical context informed by presentrealities, to free them from false views ofthe past, is not to strip them of theirculture but to enable them tounderstand their present situation withgreater clarity.

Following Krishnamurti’s insightthat observation of nature has afundamental role in educational

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practice, the school set up an Instituteof Bird Studies and Natural History. TheInstitute has a two-fold agenda: tocultivate a close study of nature in thestudents of Rishi Valley and to heightenawareness of our natural heritage on thenational scene. Nature Studies havebecome an important activity forstudents. They keep track of migrantpopulations of birds, watch out fornewcomers and have documented thebreeding biology, for instance, of theGreat Horned Owl and Brown Fish Owl.Research conducted by students andteachers has revealed the following data:there are 200 species of birds in thevalley, 50 species of butterflies, some rarelike the Blue Mormon; and a variety ofreptiles, including the near extinct bridalsnake.

To promote a caring attitude towardsnature and birds among students andresidents Rishi Valley was declared aBird Preserve in July 1991 and sincethen bird studies have gainedprominence. The oath we took on thatoccasion reads in part underlines ourresolve of ‘preserving, protecting andenriching the avifaunal wealth, habitatdiversity and flora of the Valley as awhole.

A love of nature, freedom from thepast, and a long vision, the basicvirtues embedded in Krishnamurti’seducational philosophy, are necessary ifour future citizens are to fulfil theconstitutional obligations embodied inArticle 51A (g) —

‘It shall be the duty of every citizen toprotect and improve the naturalenvironment including forests, lakes, riversand wildlife and to have compassion forwild creatures’.

It is a Directive Principle in theIndian Constitution but for theinhabitants of the Valley it should becomea central tenet.

Rural Education

A new design for village education isbeing developed at Rishi Valley for thepast twenty years. The programme isbased on the premise that humanwelfare demands a regeneratedlandscape, especially in a country wherethe majority population lives atsubsistence level, and where the produceof the earth directly enhances humanwell-being (Jodha, 2001).

The ‘Satellite Schools’ RVIEC createdin the centre of hamlets around theValley represent degraded landscapesturned into green public spaces. Atypical Satellite School can host, besidean elementary school, a balwadi, adulteducation programmes, puppet showsand theatre. The schools are linked witheach other and with government schoolsthrough metric melas, where childrenfrom neighbouring schools buy and sellfood, weigh themselves and theirparents, compute averages and, in theprocess, learn to play around withnumbers. Doctors from Rishi Valley takeresponsibility for student health in theseschools.

It is hoped that the grounds of theschool, which are terraced to conservewater and planted with shrubs andtrees, will partially meet part of the foodand fodder needs of the village, andprovide spaces for conservation of bio-diversity. One day perhaps the grain formid-day meals could be grown on theschool premises. Our eventual hope isthat these schools will serve as the

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nucleus for a recovery of the traditionalcommons, and the return of ‘socialcapital’: a wise use of natural resourcesthat is being lost to a competitive marketeconomy.

The Rishi Valley Institute forEducational Research, located on theRishi Valley Campus, has created studymaterials suited to the educational needsof the village. A typical village school inIndia provides one teacher to cater tostudents belonging to mixed ages andability groups. The method of teachingis textbook-centred, with the teacherdominating the classroom. Failureshaunt these schools; most elementaryschools count the largest numbers intheir first grade.

These educational materials breakdown the learning process into asequence of concrete and manageablesteps. This collection of cards inelementary mathematics, environmentalscience and language are graded in waysthat students can easily identify andwork through by themselves or withminimum help from the teacher;students are self-learners; teachersmerely facilitators. Respect and tolerancefor other cultures and concern for thenatural environment are values woveninto the material.

A graphic chart described as theLadder of Learning in at the centre of themulti-grade programme. The Ladder, inconjunction with the cards, charts theprogress of a student through stages ofthe learning process. It registers thisprogression in a simple visual displaythat gives the child a concrete sense ofprogress. It is a visual metaphor thathas proven to be a very effectivemotivating factor, as each student clearly

sees herself moving onward (andupwards!) through the subject.

The Ladder guides the organisationof classrooms. It enables teachers todivide the class, not according to abilitygroups but to different organisationalprinciples: fully-teacher Supported,Partly teacher-supported and peer-supported groups are clubbed separatelyirrespective of their ability. In anarrangement where older students andyounger students are part of the samegroup, a great principle adopted by RIVERfrom J. Krishnamurti — ‘You are both theteacher and the taught,’ is translatedinto the classroom, but in different ways.

It is sometimes thought that theLadder of Learning is a straightjacket intowhich all content is inflexibly strapped.It has occasionally been described as asystem of ‘programmed learning’. Theconfusion that can be cleared away byreflecting on the relationship betweengrammatical structures and the use oflanguage; the rules of language do notimpede an individual from speakingcreatively. The Ladder’s constraints areno more limiting than those imposed bygrammatical rules on speech – bothpoets and ordinary human beings areable to speak in sentences they have notlearnt before.

Forty per cent of the spaces mappedon the Ladder are left free, for teachersto fill in with the help of local content:songs, riddles, local myths and mother’stales. Puppetry and surveys of local floraand fauna are part of the enrichmentroutine followed by each school. Localculture, in this way, finds its way intothe classroom. The school doors remainopen, and local potters donate their clayelephants and horses to beautify school

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grounds. A Mother’s Committee takescharge of mid-day meals, hosts metricmelas and overseas the teacher’s work.

A Rural Health Centre has beenproviding quality primary health care tothe villages in the area. The success inthe immediate vicinity has drawn peoplefrom as far as one hundred fifty kilometers away. A unique feature of thecentre is nurses trained in each villageto monitor that patients continuetreatment. A volunteer from each ofthese villages receives training from theHealth Centre on AIDS awareness.

These multi-grade, multi-levelteaching and learning methodology hasbecome a model for thousands of formaland non-formal schools in several partsof the country. Among the moreprominent adaptations of themethodology are the famous Nali Kaliexperiment in the formal schools of HDKote block of Mysore Districts and theCorporation Schools in Chennai. Wehave just signed an agreement with aUNICEF and Sarva Siksha Abhayan(SSA) supported programme for defining,designing and developing ‘a holisticquality package of essentialinterventions for primary schools,’ inseveral states, including Gujarat,Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Orissa,Bihar and Jharkhand.

Conservation Work

The educational work of Rishi Valley isnested in actual practice — waterconservation, soil and moistureconservation, reforestation, preservinglocal species of domesticated cattle, useof alternative energy are all part of ourwork that benefits the inhabitants of thevalley and introduces students to an

alternative lifestyle.Water is the Valley’s greatest

problem. Monsoons are erratic and thefew natural streams flow only during themonsoon season and swiftly grow dry. Formost of the year underground waterdrawn from wells is the only source ofwater. The ground water stood at onehundred-thirty meters below groundlevel, as a result of too many new wellsbeing dug by the school’s need to batheand feed five-hundred inhabitants,maintain its dairy and by farmers whonow grow paddy instead of the rain-fedmillet and peanuts.

Serious water harvesting began inthe seventies with the Centre donatingits own land for the construction of twopercolation tanks, and supervisingprojects financed by the Andhra Pradeshgovernment. The two tanks, the firstcalled ‘Lost Lake,’ situated midway up thehills to the south of the campus helpedregenerate one hundred-fifty acres of aonce-barren hillside. The other, situatedin the valley, services wells three milesdownstream and has resulted in a muchmore prosperous farming community.Five more tanks were built more recentlyin the Valley.

Beginning in 1988, under a grantfrom the Wasteland Development Board,the Centre built small check dams andbunds along the contours of an 800-hectares hillside. This meant persuadingvillagers to donate labour and allowconstruction of bunds across their smallholdings. Custard Apples, which goatsavoid, were planted along the bunds tohold in soil. Large nurseries of jamun,tamarind, peepal, red sander and neemsaplings were established. Several ofthese were given away to farmers from

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distant parts, and many others plantedon hundred fifty acres of the bald hillsidewhere Lost Lake is located. Over a periodof twenty years this barren hillside isnow part scrubland and part denseforest. For the local village communitythe hundred fifty acres hillside meansfodder for its animal population and fuelwood; the space is a kind of insuranceagainst long periods of drought. Thecampus that once consisted of dry landsand scrublands, now boasts of woodlandsand several wetlands.

A survey of the flora on campusrevealed many hundred species of plants,several of which have medicinalproperties. Following the survey aflourishing Herbal Garden has beenestablished on six acres of land. Underthe care of an Ayurvedic specialist, it nowhas two hundred species of local bushesand trees that provide medicinal benefitsto the local population. There is aconcerted effort to spread the plants andrestore the fast-vanishing knowledgeand faith in their healing properties tonearby villages, especially among thewomen.

The Rishi Valley Dairy is engaging inthe task of breeding Ongole cattle, adomesticated breed famous for the loadcarrying capacity of the male. In thecurrent economic climate wherebreeding is almost entirely aimed atincreasing milk yields, the species is nearextinction in Andhra Pradesh. We areconcerned about the long-termimplications of this practice for marginalagriculture whose mainstay is the bull-driven plough.

Mindful of the limited energyresources in the country and takingadvantage of various subsidies from the

Government of India, Rishi ValleyEducation Centre has built a large gobargas plant in its dairy which servesaround 25 per cent of the school’s cookingneeds. Solar heaters for hot water serveseveral dormitories.

Krishnamurti, the Deep Ecologist

Arne Naess the Norwegian philosopherwho coined the term ‘Deep Ecology’,distinguishes three types of ‘DeepEcologist’ in the following —

… within deep ecology you have thosewho specialise on a spiritual level, sayingyou have to change the way you arementally, and others say no, all theproblems in deep ecology are political moreor less, you have to go into politics andthe third one just utters “ah, wonderfulnature, wonderful nature, wonderfulnature.” For Naess himself, ‘ . . . ecologicalscience concerned with facts and logicalone, cannot answer ethical questionsabout how we should live. For this weneed ecological wisdom. Deep ecologyseeks to develop this by focussing on deepexperience, deep questioning and deepcommitment’ (Naess, 1997).

Krishnamurti properly fits Naess’first category of spiritual thinkers. Themain thrust of his thought was to awakenhuman beings from the ‘obstinacy’, adescription used by the well-knownbiologist Edward O. Wilson, in which theyare sunk. ‘Human beings are adapted byDarwinian natural selection,’ Wilsonexplains, ‘to short-term decisions andfocus on local concerns.’ Krishnamurti’sanalysis of the human condition took inthis destructive side of human nature,its incapacity to take a long view, andconsider the wider implications of its ownactions. But Krishnamurti tempered this

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recognition with a radiant sense ofhuman possibilities.

According to Wilson, if humanconsumption patterns continue atpresent levels we will by 2100 need fourmore planet Earths to ‘sustain life as weknow it’. And it is fairly well-establishedthat resource scarcity results in violence.Krishnamurti addresses these issues inhis philosophy of education.

The aim of education, according toKrishnamurti, is to create good humanbeings with an awakened sense ofresponsibility. The aim is not primarilyto mould them into slots created bysociety: professional success, acomfortable homes and a respectablefamily life. These he dismissed as beingnarrow, bourgeois and second-hand; aslocked into the short-term vision andincapable of resolving the problems thatwe as a species face. Instead he thoughteducation should be dedicated tocreating ‘good human beings’ with a longview.

The three main components ofKrishnamurti’s concept of goodness arefreedom, intelligence and responsibility.And all three are the outcome of the rightkind of learning. Learning, forKrishnamurti, is both a positive facultyand a negating capability. Learning ispositive because it teaches you aboutyourself and the world. It is a negatingcapability because it allows the darkerimpulses that guide human nature, greedand violence, to dissolve.

Krishnamurti’s response to a studentwho asks him, ‘How can we knowourselves?’ helps highlights both aspectsof this faculty. The first step in theprocess, as he explains very simply, is toobserve as one might in a mirror ‘the way

you talk, the way you behave, whetheryou are hard, cruel, rough, patient’(Krishnamurti, 1974, p. 76). The mirrorreveals what one is, but problems takehold when one begins to disapprove ofwhat the mirror shows. ‘The mirror says,this is the fact; but you do not like thefact. So, you want to alter it. You startdistorting it.’ (Krishnamurti, 1974, p. 76).Attention is silently watching what themirror reveals, without the desire tochange it. When this silent observationcomes into being there is freedom fromanger, envy and the pettiness that cloudsthe mirror. ‘Look’, he says, ‘not with yourmind but with your eyes’ (Krishnamurti,1974, p. 23).

Over and over again, distinguishingwhat is artificial or socially constructedfrom what is natural, Krishnamurtidirected students to nature and to thesenses. The senses are tools forcleansing the mind: ‘Just look at thestars, the clear sky, the birds, the shapeof the leaves. Watch the shadow. Watchthe bird across the sky. By being withyourself, sitting quietly under a tree, youbegin to understand the workings of yourown mind and that is as important asgoing to class’ (Krishnamurti, 1974, p. 47).

Unlearning the emotions of envy,greed, anger and ambition is the key thatopens the mind to a wider and deeperreality, away from its narrow, self-centredvision. Unlearning frees the mind fromits divisive actions, its tendency to lookat others in stereotypical images: ‘Youare not a Russian or an American, youare not Hindu or a Muslim. You are apartfrom these labels. You are the rest ofmankind’ (Krishnamurti, 1987,72-73).

Krishnamurti’s educationalphilosophy sought to uncover the

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individual’s relationship with society andthrough that with nature. He held thathuman beings, despite being modern, arenot really individuals in the truest senseof that word; they are still driven by socialforces, by the worldview derived fromtheir elders, peers, society at large andthe times in which they live. These socialforces are motivated by fear, ambition,and greed. Learning about the influencesthat direct one’s life and shedding theemotions of fear, greed, envy and angerthrough learning about them clears theway for compassion.

So the moral truths thatKrishnamurti sought came neitherpackaged as true belief, nor as knowledgeand theories, but were intrinsic to aspontaneously-born sensitivity to life:‘Fear shuts out the understanding oflife with all its extraordinarycomplications, with its struggles, itssorrows, its poverty, its riches andbeauty—the beauty of the birds, and ofthe sunset on the water. When you arefrightened, you are insensitive to all this’(Krishnamurti, 1963). Krishnamurtiwas convinced that our shortsightedinstincts can be overcome and the rightkind of education can show us the wayto reclaiming the Earth for futuregenerations.

Edward Wilson recognises that ourspecies’ destructive instincts are unique;they are not shared by other species withwhom we live on Earth. WithKrishnamurti, Wilson also recognisesthat science alone cannot solve theproblem human beings have created. Butwhereas Wilson invokes the lost instinctwe share with the whole of life as the pathto salvation — ‘Every species, right downto nematode worms, has pretty elaborate

behaviour that leads them to the righthabitat at the right time. Shouldn’t wefind some residue of that instinct inhuman beings? … On some level, it is wiredinto us to be around nature. We shouldnot let that instinct disappear’.Krishnamurti puts his faith in thehuman ability to free the mind from thenegative emotions of greed and violence,as a way of unlocking the shackles thatbind individuals to self-interest.

Krishnamurti’s vision for humanityresonates with thinkers both from India’sancient and more recent past.

His almost nihilistic radicalism iscaptured by the Buddhist Nagarjuna’stribute to the Buddha in the last stanzaof the Mulamadhyamakarika.

I prostrate before the Gautama, who,grounded in compassion, taught the truedharma in order to destroy all opinions (orall points of view).

His great passion for nature withTagore’s idea of India’s civilisationalvalues.

Contemporary Western civilisation isbuilt of brick and wood. It is rooted in thecity. But Indian civilisation has beendistinctive in locating its sources ofregeneration, material an intellectual, inthe forest, not the city, India’s best ideashave come where man was in communionwith trees and rivers and lakes, away fromthe crowds. The peace of the forest hashelped the intellectual evolution of man.The culture of the forest has fuelled theculture of Indian society. The culture thathas arisen from the forest has beeninfluenced by the diverse processes ofrenewal of life that are always at play inthe forest, varying from species to species,from season to season, in sight and soundand smell. The unifying principle of life in

46 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

diversity, of democratic pluralism, thusbecame the principle of Indian civilisation.

Not being caged in brick, wood andiron, Indian thinkers were surroundedby and linked to the life of the forest. Theliving forest was for them their shelter,their source of food. The intimaterelationship between human life andliving nature became the source ofknowledge. Nature was not dead andinert in this knowledge system. Theexperience of life in the forest made itadequately clear that living nature wasthe source of light and air, of food andwater (Quoted by Vandana Shiva, 1988,p. 55).

Krishnamurti’s idea of a school withOpen Doors recall Gandhi’s idea ofTrusteeship, some of the basic principlesof which were codified under theMahatma’s direction:

Trusteeship provides a means oftransforming the present capitalist orderof society into an egalitarian one. It givesno quarter to capitalism, but gives thepresent owning class a chance ofreforming itself. It is based on the faiththat human nature is never beyondredemption (Dantwala, 1986, p. 40).

Conclusion

The urgent need of the hour is vividlydescribed by Mark Edwards, who hasbeen following environmental issues forclose to forty years.

Humanity will have to put aside thedeep divisions it has maintained forthousands and thousands of years andtake practical steps to solve this problem.The prize will be to deflect militaryspending, currently one trillion dollars ofglobal taxpayer’s money a year, to pay toreinvent the modern world so that it is

compatible with nature. This wouldrequire a coalition of those in the peacemovement, environmentalists, those whosupport the campaign against poverty –and the silent majority. They have to findtheir voice. Unless they do, a hard rain’sa-gonna fall (Edwards, 2006, p. 8).

If what Peter Drucker predicts is trueand the world is moving towards aknowledge society then knowledge willhave to be harnessed to nurturing theEarth, not savaging it. Krishnamurtisuggested this transformation wouldrequire that human beings unlearn thehabits of thought bred by greed andaggression.

“Indian society seemed to developmore by successive religioustransformation than by violence”,Kosambi remarks, adding that society“failed to develop further for much thesame reason” (Kosambi 1956). Indiamight have emerged as a morehomogeneous society in the twentiethcentury, if its mode of development in theancient world had been more like that ofEuropean cultures — if overt violencehad been an instrument of subduing thecultures of technologically less advancedpeople.

There was rarely the bitter, violentconflict between the most primitive and themost developed elements of society in Indiathat one finds in the devastating interactionin the devastating interaction of Spanishconquistadors . . . with tribal cultures inSouth America (Kosambi, 1956, p. 8).

Kosambi’s attribution of a positiverole to religion in India is intriguing,coming as it does from a historian with aMarxist view of history. But thenKosambi was an historian for whom therelationship between theory and

Religion, Education and Peace 47

empirical data was one ofinterdependence; ideology did not takeprecedence over evidence; history he said‘is there for those who have the eyes tosee it.’

Going on to illustrate with multipleexamples which need not concern ushere, Kosambi ended the first chapter ofhis An Introduction to the Study of IndianHistory with a quotation from Marxwherein he congratulated thephilosopher’s foresight into theconsequences of British colonial rule forthe future of India. The colonial legacy‘of railways, and machine production, anew Indian bureaucracy, bourgeoisie,proletariat, and army’, would certainlyremake the subcontinent, but would notbring any change the material conditionof the people.

India’s cultural pluralism, whichbegan in the ancient world, was achievedat the cost of hidden violence thatpositioned caste groups into hierarchies,assigning strictly defined ecologicalniches to each group. Jati, like species,in this pre-Darwinian enterprise,imitated nature. The post-industrial erain India’s history has led the country intowhat Gadgil and Guha describe as ‘acauldron of conflicts’. Economic andeducational policies of the state haveneither levelled the field for all individualcitizens nor provided opportunities foradvancements to the poor. The cauldronof conflicts is the result of competitionand conflict over limited resources. TheIndian reality only reflects the largerpicture in the world where nationscompete over resources and spend theirwealth of weapons of power rather thanon servicing the Earth.

The statement is prescient despitethe hopes of Indian statesmen whodreamed of erasing the hierarchicalstructures and hidden violence in India’sancient societal structure when the newconstitution adopted after independenceenshrined the concepts of liberty,equality and fraternity.

Education based on a spiritual non-divisive philosophy of J. Krishnamurtican play a positive role thatD. D. Kosambi recorded in his historicalreconstruction of India’s past. J.Krishnamurti, as the following quotationillustrates, defined the problems ofeducation in a holistic framework.

The world of nature and the world ofman … are inter-related. Man cannot escapefrom that. When he destroys nature he isdestroying himself. When he kills anotherhe is killing himself. The enemy is not theother but you. To live in such harmony withnature, with the world, naturally bringsabout a different world. This is one of theresponsibilities of the educator, not merelyto teach mathematics or how to run acomputer. Far more important is to havecommunion with the world. The world maybe too large but the world is where he is;that is his world. And this brings about anatural consideration, affection for others,courtesy and behaviour that is not rough,cruel, vulgar.

The world of nature and the world ofman are inter-related. Man cannotescape from that. When he destroysnature he is destroying himself. Whenhe kills another he is killing himself. Theenemy is not the other but you. To live insuch harmony with nature, with theworld, naturally brings about a differentworld (Krishnamurti, 1985).

48 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

The education project at Rishi Valleydemonstrates that Krishnamurti wasmore than a visionary; that his

REFERENCES

ALEXANDER, ROBIN. 2006. Education as Dialogue. Hong Kong Institute of Education.Hong Kong.

BRUNO, JEROME. 1986. Actual Worlds Possible Minds. Harvard University Press. MA.,Cambridge.

BRUNER, J. 1996. The Culture of Education. Harvard University Press, MA, Cambridge.DANTWALA, M.L. 1986. ‘The Moral Economy of Trusteeship’ in Trusteeship: The

Gandhian Alternative. Gandhi Peace Foundation. New Delhi.DRUCKER, PETER F. 1994. ‘Knowledge Work and Knowledge Society: The Social

Transformations of this Century’ (lecture given at Harvard University).http://www.ksg. harvard.edu/ifactory/ksgpress/www/ksg_news/transcripts/drucklec.htm.

EDWARDS, MARK. 2006. Hard Rain: Our Headlong Collision with Nature. Still Picturesand Moving Words, London.

GADGIL, MADHAV and RAMACHANDRA GUHA. 1995. Ecology and Equity. The Use and Abuse ofNature in Contemporary India. Penguin Books, New Delhi.

GUHA, RAMACHANDRA. 2006. How Much should a Person Consume? Permanent Black,Delhi.

INGALLS, DANIEL et al. 1990. The Dhvanyaloka of Anandavardhana with the Locana ofAbhinavagupta. Harvard University Press. MA, Cambridge.

JODHA, NARPAT. 1998. ‘Community Management of Commons: Re-empowerment Processand the Gaps’ (lecture presented at “Crossing Boundaries”, the seventh annualconference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property,Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 1998), http://http//www.arc.cs.odu.edu:8080/dp9/getrecord/oai_dc/dlc.dlib.indiana.eduoai:dlc.dlib.Indiana.edu.

_____________. 2001. Life on the Edge: Sustaining Agriculture and Community Resourcesin Fragile Environments. Oxford, New Delhi.

KOSAMBI, D.D. 1956. An Introduction to the Study of Indian History. Popular Prakashan,Bombay.

KRISHNAMURTI, J. 1953. Education and the Significance of Life. Victor Golancz, London._______________ 1963. Life Ahead. Victor Golancz, London._______________ 1964. This Matter of Culture. Victor Golancz, London._______________ 1974. On Education. Orient Longman, New Delhi._______________ 1975. Beginnings of Learning Victor Golancz Ltd., London._______________ 1985. Letters to the Schools, Vol. 2. Krishnamurti Foundation, India.

Chennai._______________ 1987. Krishnamurti to Himself. Victor Golancz, London.______________ 1987. The Collected Works of J. Krishnamurti. Krishnamurti

Publications of America.

educational vision can be translated intoa reality that is both relevant to our timesand to the future.

Religion, Education and Peace 49

NAESS, ARNE. 1997. Interview- Radio National, the Australian BroadcastingCorporation’s national radio network of ideas. www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/trr9743.

DE LA VALLE POUSSIN, LOUIS. 1931. Mulamadhyamakarika de Nagarjuna avec Pasannapadacommentaire de Candrakirti. Bibliotheca Buddhica LV, St. Petersburg.

SHIVA, VANDANA.1988. Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Survival in India. Kali forWomen, New Delhi.

WILSON, EDWARD O. ‘Only Humans Can Halt the Worst Wave of Extinction Since theDinosaurs Died’ http://raysweb.net/specialplaces/pages/wilson.html

50 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Reinventing the Paradigm of TeachingImplication for Teacher Education

ANJALI KHIRWADKAR*

Abstract

Introduction

The progress of any country dependsupon the quality of education offered andits practices. Indian education was wellknown for its Gurukul system ofeducation in the Vedic age. Education inIndia has undergone various phases andstages of development starting Vedic ageto post-independence period. At allstages of development there was aconcern for bringing in the qualityeducation reflecting on the practicalaspects in education. The great Indianthinkers also emphasised on developing

At every stage and development of education, quality has always been a greatconcern. The great Indian thinkers emphasised on developing inner potentials ofindividuals. The NCF-2005 states that the curriculum must enable students tofind their voices, nurture their curiosity to do things, to ask questions and topursue investigations, sharing and integrating their experiences with schoolknowledge rather than their ability to produce textual knowledge. ICT provides toplay an active role to the students necessary for quality learning. The web-basedteaching-learning practice is the art, craft and science of using network technologies.It provides to the students a wide range of scopes for integrating varied learningexperiences and making learning a holistic one.

*Lecturer, Department of Education, Faculty of Education and Psychology, The M.S.University of Baroda, Vadodara, Gujarat.

inner potentials of individual by reflectingon unique potential of individual. Gettingeducated is solely dependent upon theindividual teachers role to set conditions,generate environments for learning.

School education till 1976 was underthe State control and centre would advicestate for policy issues. Latter theConstitution was amended to includeeducation in the concurrent list. TheNPE 1986 recommended for a commoncore component in school curriculumthroughout the country and NCERT wasgiven the responsibility for developingNational Curriculum Framework and

Reinventing the Paradigm of Teaching 51

review the framework at regularintervals. In spite of the variousrecommendations as per NPE 1986 theschool education remained to be examoriented, bookish and information loadeddevoid of practical aspects. The recentNational Curriculum Framework–2005focuses on the following issues:

● Connecting knowledge to lifeoutside.

● Shift from rote learning toconstructing knowledge.

● Providing wide range experiencesfor overall development of a child.

● Bringing flexibility in theexaminations.

The development in technology haschanged the world outside theclassroom; it is more eye-catching andinteresting for a student than theclassroom setting. As a result studentsfind classroom instructions as dull anddevoid of life and do not interest themfor learning. The information technologyhas made learner WWW afflicted:WWW Share discoveries and discussions.

WWW Continually provide studentswith enrichment outside of classhours.WWW Provide follow-up on weeklyactivity schedules.WWW Maintain instructions forgroups and individuals.WWW Encourage students to makemore efficient and intense use ofcomputers.

Teacher has a tough time to arrangefor different kind of learning experiencesfor catching attention of students,persisting their motivational level,energizing them to work in new situationswith limited resources.

As per National CurriculumFramework–2005, “The curriculum mustenable children to find their voices,nurture their curiosity – to do things, toask questions and to pursueinvestigations, sharing and integratingtheir experiences with school knowledgerather than their ability to producetextual knowledge”.

The most important aspect of learningare developing capacity for abstractthinking, reflection and students learnin variety of experiences like reading,experimenting, listening, thinking,reflecting, writing , expressing oneself inspeech, etc. Thus, conceptualunderstanding can be developed byengaging students actively in learningprocess. Active involvement involvesexploration, enquiry, questioning,discussion, reflection leading to creationof ideas. Hence, before the teacher thechallenge is process of activeinvolvement and learning variousconcepts. The curriculum frameworkemphasises developing critical thinkingamong students making them activelearners this can be made possible bytaking advantage of ICT and working onmultiple intelligence models.

Emphasising Critical Thinking byway of Multiple Intelligence inEducational Practices

The above mentioned discussionindicates that the new curriculumframework is very decisive aboutdeveloping critical thinking. Criticalthinking emphasises the ability andtendency to gather, evaluate and useinformation effectively (Beyer, 1985).The researches conducted in the areahave identified several distinct skills

52 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

related to an overall ability for criticalthinking.

Finding analogies and other kinds ofrelationships between pieces ofinformation. Determining the relevanceand validity of information that could beused for structuring and solvingproblems. Finding and evaluatingsolutions or alternative ways of treatingproblems. There are several generallyrecognised “hallmarks” of teaching forcritical thinking (Beyer, 1985; Costa,1985) like:

Promoting interaction amongstudents as they learn – Learning in agroup setting often helps each memberachieve more.

Asking open-ended questions thatdo not assume the “one right answer” –Critical thinking is often exemplified bestwhen the problems are inherently ill-defined and do not have a “right” answer.Open-ended questions also encouragestudents to think and respond creatively,without fear of giving the “wrong”answer.

Allowing sufficient time for studentsto reflect on the questions asked orproblems posed – Critical thinking hardlyever involves sudden judgments;therefore, posing questions and allowingadequate time before seeking responseshelps students understand that they areexpected to deliberate and to ponder.

Teaching for transfer – The skills forcritical thinking should “travel well”. Forthis teachers should provideopportunities for students to see how anewly acquired skill can be applied toother situations and to the student’s ownexperience.

Further, if we have a look at theGardner’s ‘Theory of Multiple

Intelligences’ it encourages educators tostart thinking of intelligence as a set ofmany different abilities and skills thathelp an individual learner comprehend,examine, and respond to many differenttypes on content in order to solveproblems or to make something that isvalued in one or more cultures (Checkley,1997). Gardner notes that individualsdo not necessarily have the samestrengths in each area and can improveat each of the intelligences. Gardnermakes it clear that his theory merelydescribes a learning behaviour andshould not be labeled as a learning style.He states that learning styles are “claimsabout ways in which individualsevidently approach everything theydo...You could say that a child is a visuallearner, but that’s not a multipleintelligences way of talking about things.On the contrary “here is a child who veryeasily represents things spatially, andwe can draw upon that strength if needbe when we want to teach the childsomething new.” (Checkley, 1997).

The passive way of learning fails toengage student in his/her own learning.A learner-centred approach in whichstudents take a greater responsibility forwhat goes on in their own minds andhence are responsible for their learning.“The ways in which intelligencescombine and blend are as varied as thefaces and personalities of individuals”(Edwards, 1995). Both student andteacher must find active ways to tailoreach individual’s multiple intelligencesto best acquire new concepts, ideas, andknowledge.

The boon of technologicaldevelopments should be taken in theeducation process to promote learning.

Reinventing the Paradigm of Teaching 53

As technology provides a wide scope tocater to the individual differences as canbe seen from Table 1.

Thus, multimedia and internet is aboon for teachers to structure lessonsthat reach all students which are not metin the traditional classroom. ICT providesa support to the student to take an activerole in the learning process andstrengthen all of the multiple

intelligences necessary for qualitylearning. ICT applications open up awhole new world of discovery andlearning. The Internet provides both anideal resource and platform fordeveloping critical thinking by way ofmultiple intelligences. Not only planningthe lesson activities but also many of theclassroom activities may find a place onthe Internet for student use. Even

TABLE1

Multiple Intelligence and Internet as a tool for learning (Edwards, 1995)

Bodily/Kinesthetic Navigating through software- or web-based scientific inquiries,dissections, and Web Quests with the use of a keyboard, joystick,mouse

Interpersonal Collaborating online via list serves, chat rooms, newsgroups,and e-mail

Intrapersonal Computer assisted instruction; simulations that only rely onthe computer’s response, self-assessments, designing homepages,and word processing class assignments.

Logical/Mathematical Generating database and spreadsheet programmes; Engagingin problem-solving software; Using online calculators; Utilisingmultimedia authoring programmes.

Musical/Rhythmic Listening to *.wav, MPEG, or MIDI files associated on softwareand Web pages; Creating presentations that require the recordingof sound(s). editing of video.

Naturalist Using real-time images of the natural world as a basis of acomparison study; Digitize images or the natural world capturedon videotape or digital camera.

Verbal/Linguistic Comparing online articles from scientific journals, magazines,businesses, schools, and independent sources; desktoppublishing, voice annotations, and speech output.

Visual/Spatial Designing and interpreting graphical layouts; Using draw- orpaint programmes; Charting data in spreadsheet applications;Capturing/manipulating images from a digital camera, video,scanner, or web page; Manipulating objects in three dimensionsusing JAVA script.

Existential Art replica, planetarium, stage drama, classic literature, classicphilosophy, symbols of world religions, virtual communities,virtual art exhibits, virtual field trips, virtual reality, simulations.

54 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

TABLE 2

Internet Based Multiple Intelligence (MI) Activities (Sally Bergman, 1995)

Logical/Mathematical Analyse statistical historical data, create graphicrepresentations of historical data, create hyperlinkedtimeline.

Verbal/Linguistic Compose essays, poetry, etc. for publishing on web page,critique written resources through an annotatedbibliography.

Visual/Spatial Construct thematic web pages that include various visualimages (e.g., posters, political cartoons, broadsides, photos,illustrations), construct hyperlinked timelines and maps.

Musical/Rhythmic Analysis of song lyrics, composition of song lyrics, designand publish Power Point presentations which incorporatemusic and visual elements.

Body/Kinesthetic Internet-based simulations, cooperative web searches or webquests, role-playing activities that incorporate Webresources, classroom presentations.

Naturalist Design virtual landscapes; analyse computer simulatedtopographic cities, maps, etc.

Interpersonal All of the above activities that might be designed toincorporate cooperative learning in groups.

Intrapersonal All of the above activities that might be completed throughreflective individual projects.

TABLE 3

Worldwide Web MI Resources (David G. Lazear, 1996)

Logical/Mathematical Charts, diagrams, government reports, statisticaldemographic and population data.

Verbal/Linguistic Government documents, personal narratives, historicaldocuments, letters.

Visual/Spatial Maps, diagrams, illustrations, battlefield representations,historical timelines.

Musical/Rhythmic Lyrics or audio files of patriotic, protest, period and otherhistorical music.

Body/Kinesthetic Illustrations and descriptions of historical costumes,cooking, dance, etc. for role-playing or simulation.

Naturalist Illustrations, paintings, maps, personal narratives andphotographs of historical and contemporary environments.

Interpersonal All of the above resources that might be used in cooperativeMI activities.

Intrapersonal All of the above resources that might be used in reflective,individual MI activities.

Reinventing the Paradigm of Teaching 55

Gardner believed the potential impact ofcomputer technology would not be feltuntil the next century, 2013 to be exact(Howard Gardner, 1999).

Table 2 and 3 depicts how Internetcould help teacher in preparing lessonplans with an entirely differentdimension. The promise of marryingtechnology with the pedagogy is one thatcan be realised today. The Internet basedpedagogy gives a scope to the teacher toincorporate flexibility to meet individualneeds.

Steps to Incorporate WWW in theTeaching-learning Process

● Step one would be to collectmultimedia Web sites. Generallyreferred as Hot list containingbookmarked sites that are mostuseful, interesting, and/or peculiarfor a given topic and a variety oflearners.

● Second step would be the collectionof online newsletters, desktop slidepresentations, and Hyper Studiostacks that would focus onproviding links to a variety ofsubject-related multimediaresources. All these can be groupedtogether in a Multimedia Scrapbookwhich is built around what theindividual learner defines asmeaningful and helpful.

● Third step to target specific-learningbehaviours using online multimediaresources by posing questions thatmotivate students and generatescuriosity for learning. TreasureHunt as designed by teacher wherestudents are given a list of specificsites that hold information thatappeal to several multiple

intelligences and are essential forunderstanding a given topic.

● Fourth step the Subject Samplerswhere teacher presents six to eightcaptivating Web sites organisedaround a main topic. Studentsdevelop a sense of connection withthe topic because they are askedto respond to Web-based activitieslike to explore or compareinterpretations of pictures, data, orsounds and share (by postingonline) experiences they have had.

● Fifth step Web Quests help studentsgo beyond learning basic facts. Itrequires student to work in groupswith a challenging task, providesaccess to an abundance of onlineresources and scaffolds.

Networked technologies add newdimensions in organising learningexperiences:

● Revealing the quality resources.● Preparing students for the work

environments of the future.● Networking at various levels like

among students, among faculty,and among students, faculty, andprofessionals beyond the University.

Thus, web-based teaching-learningpractice generally called as Webagogy isthe art, craft, and science of usingnetworked technologies. As it is rightlypointed out by Boettcher (1997) “Nowthat the Worldwide Web is providing awhole new context for teaching andlearning, we have the need to return tothe core principles of teaching andlearning, and create a new model ofteaching and learning. Technology,applied in conjunction with pedagogicalconcepts can create an effective student-

56 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

centred environment and enhanceLearning outcomes.

Carr (1997) agrees with Boettcher:‘without appropriate pedagogy, use ofHigh capacity communication servicescannot provide significant Improvementsin learning outcomes. In general, it is thepedagogy that provides for learning, notthe technology or the software alone.’

But there are various issues of web-based learning which needs to be takencare by the teacher like intellectualproperty. Using educational toolsappropriately and obtaining thenecessary permissions from its ownerswould be essential. Another majorproblem would be of security should toprotect networked systems, login IDs andpasswords should be kept private andservers and scripts designed topreventing hacking. Every individuallearner on the net has a right to privacywhich must be respected.

Pedagogy is primarily associatedwith, formal school education. There aresignificant differences between the twoterms pedagogy and wabogogy in termsof independence/dependence of thelearners, resources for learning,motivation, and the role of the teacher.Context of learning is important, aslearning is context and situation-specific.Web-based teaching provides amaterials-based educational experience,which means that although it can be amaterial-rich, and stimulating, learningsituation it can also be a socially poorand lonely, learning situation. (Kirshnerand Whitson, 1997). Hence learningdepends upon the will and the learningstyle Gardner, 1985 preference of thelearner. Some learners will undoubtedlythrive in the new liberating learning

situation, while others will hesitate. Herelies the important role to be played bythe teacher to monitor, interpret and thento try to alleviate such situations. Theteacher’ s role in Web-based teaching hasalready been identified as being verydifferent from the teacher’ s role in formaleducation, with words like facilitator,referring to the person who is online andinteracting with the students in variousways. It may be the same person whoproduces the materials. Also the on-lineteacher will need to arrange range ofactivities in which they will engagestudents, and a range of roles which theywill fulfill. In Web-based teaching theteacher would be engaged in preparationand organisation of the materials-basedon same kind of assumptions about thelearners as are done by the textbookwriter.

In Web-based teaching the personaldimension can be taken care by teacherby way of discussion forums managedand facilitated by the teacher. Of coursethe Web also allows students to organisetheir own networks for support andmotivation without there beingmanagement by the teacher. This is howstudents learning can be made moremeaningful and connected to real lifeexperiences. Internet provides a widerange of scope for integrating variedlearning experiences and makinglearning a holistic one. Teachers needto work out from the given topics in thetextbook that could be easily dealt in themanner shown above. All theseresources developed by an individualteacher could be shared in a web forumfor further refining the lesson plans.

According to Plato “The purpose ofeducation is to make the individual want

Reinventing the Paradigm of Teaching 57

to do what he has to do” (Gardner, 1999).Every good teacher has to find betterways to motivate students and inspirequality learning in the classroom.Students enjoy tasks in which they canpredict success. Thus, offering themdifferent opportunities to draw upon theirmultiple intelligences strengths is anexcellent way to ensure quality learning.

Students should often be given (andasked to memorize) explicit rules forclassifying information. Such activelearning typically results in betterunderstanding and better retention ofthe concepts and related material than

is possible with a more directive teachingmethod. One of the most importantpractical thinking skills is knowing howto identify a problem. Problem finding isan excellent group activity, particularlyif two or more groups work on the sametask independently and then cometogether to compare strategies. In thisway, each student has the benefit ofexposure to several ways of solving theproblem. Enhancing the environmentcritical thinking in the classroom isfacilitated by a physical and intellectualenvironment that encourages a spirit ofdiscovery.

REFERENCES

BEYER, B.K. 1985. Critical thinking: What is it? Social Education, 49. 270-276.BOETTCHER, J. 1997) (Florida State University) Pedagogy and Learning

Strategies. Downloaded July1998 from the Web (<http://www.csus.edu/pedtech/learning.html>).

CARR, J. 1997. The Future is Already Here. A National Strategy For AustralianEducation and Training to Maximise Opportunities Offered by High CapacityCommunication Services. (<http://www.educationau.edu.au/archives/Broadbnd/Report.htm>)

CHECKLEY, KATHY. 1997. The First Seven and the Eighth: A Conversation with HowardGardner. Educational Leadership, Vol.55, No.1 <http://www.ascd.org/pubs/el/sept97/gardnerc.html> <http://www.ascd.org/pubs/el/sept97/gardnerc.html>

COSTA, A.L. (Ed.) 1985. Developing Minds: A Resource Book for Teaching Thinking.Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria, VA.

DAVID, G. LAZEAR. 1992. Teaching for Multiple Intelligences IN: Phi Delta KappaEducational Foundation, Bloomington.

KAREN, GUTLOFF (ed.). 1996. Multiple Intelligences. NEA Professional Library, WestHaven, CT.

DAVID, LAZEAR. Seven Ways of Teaching: The Artistry of Teaching with MultipleIntelligences.

EDWARDS, JACK. 1995. Multiple Intelligences and Technology. Information ResourceNetwork, Florida. <<http://www.firn.edu/~face/about/dec95/mult_int.html>>.

GARDNER, HOWARD. 1985. Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice, 251.________ 1999. The Disciplined Mind. Simon and Schuster, New York. P.52.KIRSHNER, D. and J.A. WHITSON. 1997. Situated cognition: Social, Semiotic and

Psychological Perspectives. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ. http://35.8.171.42/aera/pubs/er/er98ndx.htm.

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KIRSHNER, D. and J.A. WHITSON. 1998. Obstacles to Understanding Cognition assituated. Educational Researcher, 27(8), 22-28.

SALLY, BERGMAN. 1995. A Multiple Intelligences Road to a Quality Classroom. ISI/SkylightPublishing, Palatine, IL.

LOUISA, MELTON and WINSTON PICKETT. 1997. Using Multiple Intelligences in Middle SchoolReading. Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation, Bloomington, in. DAVID LAZEAR.Seven Ways of Teaching: The Artistry of Teaching with Multiple Intelligences.

SOARES, LOUISE M. 1998. “Structure, Content, and Process in Teacher Training: TheRelevance of Copernicus, Gardner, and Dewey,” The Clearing House, 71, No. 4,219. Web links

DAVE, ALICK. 1999. Integrating Multimedia and Multiple Intelligences to Ensure QualityLearning in a High School Biology Classroom EDUC 685-Multimedia Literacy<http://www.angelfire.com/de2/dalick/#multidedia>.

D. ANTONIO CANTU. 2000. An Internet Based Multiple Intelligences Model for TeachingHigh School History. <http://mcel.pacificu.edu/jahc/jahcII3/K12II3/Cantuindex.html>.

A Study of Relationship between Environmental Awarencess... 59

A Study of Relationship betweenEnvironmental Awareness and

Scientific Attitudes among HigherSecondary Students

PARAMANAND SINGH YADAV* and ANITA BHARATI**

Abstract

The present world is witnessing a number of environmental crises, which are theresult of the unmindful exploitation of natural resources by human being. There isan urgent need to create environmental awareness among all human beings toconserve, protect and nurture our environmental resources. Consequently,environmental education is included in school curriculum right from the verybeginning. The present study was conducted to study the environmental awarenessamong higher secondary students of Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh. The findingsof the study indicated that environmental awareness has positive relationshipwith scientific attitude among students and science students were found moreaware about their environment as compared to arts students.

* Faculty of Education, (K.), B.H.U., Varanasi, U.P.** Ex. Research Scholar, Faculty of Education, (K.), B.H.U., Varanasi, U.P.

Introduction

Environment is a broad term. It includesnot only physical or material aspect butpsychological, social and culturalaspects as well. Thus, environmentconsists of material and non-materialsurroundings of human beings.

Nature provides a limited freedom toman for conducting his exploitationalactivities. Man is a part of nature and

hence can not exert control over natureon the basis of his free-will. When he triesto break the natural laws of nature he isbound to face the serious consequences.

In the contemporary world, thehealthy existence of human society isgetting worse. This state of affair is dueto the unimaginably great volume ofenvironmental maladies or problemswhich are pushing our planet almost tothe brink of mass scale disaster of living

60 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

beings or species on this good habitableearth. The wild storms of criminality andthe volume of unsocial passions aredangerously corroding the vitality andintegrity of the working people of theworld. The harmony of heart has beendamaged and the tribunal of consciencehas been greatly demolished due tounqualitative environment on this earth.This state of environmental conditionsin which the modern man lives can bringinto existence unlimited ugly situationsand conditions, which can devour muchof the potentials of creative and healthylives of the human society.

Environmental crisis or maladies arethe foremost and the most persistentlychallenging problems which are ready todevour the glories of human existenceand are ready to wipe out the humancivilisation from this earth. The presentcentury is witnessing such problems ofenvironment crisis which are nothing butthe creation of a greedy human societywhich wants to exploit nature beyondany reasonable limit. Dominantlyoperative environmental maladies todayare always active in informing man tothink seriously and choose a waybetween creative and progressiveexistence or be ready for annihilation.

Efforts are being made to educateand to solve environmental problems.Environmentalists have taken up anenvironmental protection aspects in aserious way. It has taken a very strongposition after the United NationsConference on Human Environment atStockholm in 1972, which was a majorevent for those concerned with thequality of the world’s environment. Oneof the recommendations of theconference resulted in the creation of

United Nation EnvironmentalProgramme (UNEP) while otherrecommendations specially constitutedthe foundation of framework forcooperative efforts on international levelwhich states that environmentalawareness may be adopted by:● Identifying, analysing and

understanding the needs andproblems of personal life includinghealthy vocation, etc.,

● Social life at different levels, viz.family, caste, community, religion,town or village life, state andcountry, and

● National life including civic,economic etc.1

To quote Sir Edmund Hillary, “It ispeople who create a bad environmentand a bad environment brings out theworst in people. Man and nature needeach-other and by hurting one, wewound the other. There is so much thatneeds to be done to halt the destructionof our world environment, so manyprejudices and so much self-interest tobe overcome”.2

There is a folk song by GhanshyamShilani which starkly portrays theconditions of forests-

“Brothers and Sisters! Wake up,forest has been clean-shaved by theGovernment and the contractors, hug thetrees, don’t allow them to be cut, don’tallow the wealth of the hills to beplundered”.3

Environmental Education is a way ofimplementing the goals of environmentalprotection. Environmental education isnot a separate branch of science orsubject of study. It should be carried outaccording to principle of lifelong integraleducation”.

A Study of Relationship between Environmental Awarencess... 61

The environmental educationconference at Tbilisi (USSR) in 1977identified its ultimate aim as “creatingawareness, behavioural attitudes andvalues directed towards preserving thebiosphere, improving the quality of lifeeverywhere as well on safeguardingethical values and cultural and naturalheritage, including holy places, historicallandmarks, works of arts, monumentsand sites, human and naturalenvironment, including fauna and floraand human settlements”.4

National Environmental AwarenessCampaign (NEAC) 2000-2001, started in1986 for creating environmentalawareness at all levels of the society, wascontinued during the year with the maintheme as ‘Keep our Environment Cleanand Green’.5

‘The ministry (2000-2001) interactedactively with the UGC, NCERT and theMinistry of Human ResourceDevelopment (MHRD) for introducing andexpanding environmental concept,themes, issues etc., in the curriculam ofschools and colleges’.6

The problem can be best tackled ifproper awareness and attitude towardsenvironment is developed in man andsociety both.

Systematised, organised andawakened social mind can be developedonly through right type of education andit is through right type of education thatappropriate awareness can be created tomake life and its environment creative,constructive and progressive. To bringsuch state of mind, fostering of scientificattitude among individuals for the growthand the development of environmentalawareness is essential.

The rationality, sense of curiosity,open mindedness, etc. seem to bemeaningfully related with awareness ingeneral and environmental awareness inparticular. It was, therefore, decided tostudy in-depth the nature and extent ofenvironmental awareness among highersecondary students and to determinehow it is affected by scientific attitudes.

Statement of the Problem

The problem chosen for the study maybe stated as follows:

“A study of Relationship betweenEnvironmental Awareness and ScientificAttitudes among Higher SecondaryStudents of Varanasi City”.

Definition of the Terms UsedEnvironmental Awareness

Environmental awareness is thecharacteristic quality of man tounderstand and know the ins and outsof working forces and conditions of theenvironment.

Environmental awareness isindicative of one’s conscious state ofbeing towards one’s own environment. Inthe present study environmentalawareness includes both factualfamiliarity and personal variables as acomposite whole. However, it has beendefined operationally in the presentstudy as follows:

Environmental awareness is anattitude towards environment whichmanifests itself in terms of the awarenesstowards:1. Physical pollution2. Psychological pollution3. Social pollution4. Cultural pollution

62 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Scientific Attitude

In the present study, scientific attitudehas been operationally defined in termsof the following six components: 8

A. Rationality

1. Tendency to test traditional beliefs.2. Seeking for natural causes of events

and identification for cause-effectrelationship.

3. Acceptance of criticism.4. Challenge of authority.

B. Curiosity

1. Desire for understanding newsituations that are not explained bythe existing body of knowledge.

2. Seeking to find out the “why”, “what”and “how” of an observedphenomenon.

3. Giving emphasis on the questioningapproach for novel situations.

4. Desire for completeness ofknowledge.

C. Open-mindedness

1. Willing to revise opinions andconclusions.

2. Desire for new things and ideas.3. Rejection of singular and rigid

approach to people, things andideas.

D. Aversion to Superstitions

1. Rejection of superstitions beliefs.2. Acceptance of scientific facts and

explanations.

E. Objectivity

1. Observation free from personaljudgement.

2. Interpretation without making any

modification in present socialeconomic and political conditions.

F. Suspended Judgement

1. Unwilling to draw inference beforeevidence is collected.

2. Unwilling to accept things and factsthat are not supported byconvincing proof.

3. Avoidance of quick judgement andconclusions.

Research Questions

The main research problem was toexamine the relationship ofenvironmental awareness with scientificattitudes. The following were the mainresearch questions which the studyattempted to answer.

(1) what is the nature and extent ofenvironmental awareness amonghigher secondary students?

(2) which factors contribute to thedevelopment of environmentawareness among highersecondary students?

(3) what is the relationship betweenthe environmental awareness andscientific attitudes among highersecondary students?

Objectives of the Study

The following were the main objectivesof the study:

(1) to study the nature and extent ofenvironmental awareness amonghigher secondary students andfactors affecting it.

(2) to study the relationship betweenenvironmental awareness andscientific attitudes among highersecondary students.

A Study of Relationship between Environmental Awarencess... 63

Hypothesis of the Study

The following were the researchhypotheses of the study:

HR1: Demographic variables like age,religion, sex, place of residence, familystatus, parent’s occupation and parent’sincome affect the environmentalawareness of higher secondary students.

HR2: The educational variables likecourse of study, grade, parent’s level ofeducation affect the environmentalawareness of higher secondary students.

HR3: Environmental awareness hasrelationship with scientific attitudesamong higher secondary students.

Measurement of the Variables of theStudy

The independent variable of this studyis scientific attitudes of higher secondarystudents while dependent variable isenvironmental awareness.

From review of related literature itwas evident that although a lot of workhas been done on environmentalawareness and scientific attitudeseparately, but the researcher could notfind any study which dealt with these twovariables together. This study is anattempt to highlight the relationshipbetween environmental awareness andscientific attitudes.

(i) Environmental Awareness

In this study the environmentalawareness is measured with the help of‘Environmental Awareness Test’,designed and administered by theresearcher. Scores obtained on this testwere taken as measure of awareness ofthe higher secondary students towardsenvironment.

(ii) Scientific Attitude

In this study the scientific attitude ismeasured with the help of KriyaBhavichar Shailly Prashnawali –designed by Singh, P. N. (1988).

Relationship among Variables

At the initial level, the study wasconcerned with the measurement ofvariables, selection of sample and thedescription of the sample. At the laterstage, the study was concentrated onrelationship between the independentand dependent variables, i.e. scientificattitudes and environmental awarenessrespectively.

Population

Population for this study consisted ofscience and arts students of highersecondary schools of Varanasi Cityaffiliated to U.P. Board.

Sample

In many research situations it is notfeasible to involve or measure allmembers of the population under study.A sample is, therefore, selected andresearch is conducted only on thosemembers selected in the sample. Asample is defined as a representativepart (or subset) of the population selectedfor the observation and analysis. On thebasis of characteristics of the sample,inferences can be made about thecharacteristics of population ingeneral.

The researcher selected a simplerandom sample from the population. Thistype of sample is the best representativeof the population whose characteristicsare unknown.

64 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

The random sample consisted ofscience and arts students of highersecondary schools of Varanasi cityaffiliated to U.P. Board. The sample of thepresent study consisted of 360 scienceand arts students of higher secondaryschools of Varanasi City.

Statistical Treatment

In addition to general descriptivestatistical analysis, other treatmentssuch as F-test, t-test, correlation andmultiple regression analysis were usedto realise the objectives of the study. Thecontribution of scientific attitude onenvironmental awareness was estimatedthrough regression analysis.

(1) Environmental awareness test wasdeveloped by the researcher himselfto measure the environmentalawareness among highersecondary students of Varanasi city.

The final form of the test consisted of62 summated rating scale type items.Each item has five response category viz.strongly agree, agree, undecided,disagree, strongly disagree. Forfavourable and unfavourable items 5, 4,3, 2, 1 and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 scores were givenrespectively.

The reliability of the test was foundto be 0.92 by split half method. Thecontent, construct and intrinsic validityof the test were also established.

(2) Scientific attitude test developed bySingh, P.N. (1988) was used toassess the development of scientificattitudes of higher secondaryschool students. Split-halfreliability of this tool was found tobe 0.85 and test-retest reliabilitywas 0.54.

After scoring, the scores werepresented on two scoring sheets, one inrespect of environmental awarenessscores and other for scientific attitudescores.

F-test and t-test at 0.05 level ofsignificance were applied to study theeffect of various demographic andeducational factors on environmentalawareness and the contribution ofscientific attitude in the development ofenvironmental awareness amongstudents at higher secondary stage isestimated through regression analysis.

Findings of the Study

The objective wise findings of the studyare as follows-

Objective I

To study the nature and extent ofenvironmental awareness among highersecondary students and factors affectingit.

Hypothesis Tested

HR1: Demographic variables like age,religion, sex, place of residence, familystatus, parent’s occupation and parent’sincome affect the environmentalawareness of higher secondary students.HR2: The educational variables likecourse of study, grade and parent’s levelof education affect the environmentalawareness of higher secondary students.

The mean was about 74.8% of themaximum score possible in this test. Itmeans that there is more concentrationtowards upper half of the test.

The mean scores of environmentalawareness were found to vary among thesample according to some demographicand educational variables.

A Study of Relationship between Environmental Awarencess... 65

The relevant statistical hypotheseswere tested at 0.05 level of significanceaccording to age, religion, sex, place ofresidence, family status, grade, courseof study, parent’s level of education,parent’s income and parent’s occupation.The findings related with hypothesestesting of the environmental awarenessare described below:

1. There is no significant differencebetween the environmentalawareness scores of the sciencegroup and arts group of highersecondary students. The findings ofthe study are as follows:

From the table it is evident thatt-value is significant at 0.05 level ofsignificance. Therefore, it may be saidthat Arts and Science students do differsignificantly in their environmental

awareness. The mean score of sciencestudents is higher which shows that theyhave more environmental awareness.

2. There is no significant differencebetween the environmentalawareness scores of highersecondary students belonging todifferent parent’s income groups.The findings of the study are asfollows:

From the table, it is evident thatt-value is significant at 0.05 level ofsignificance. Therefore, it may be saidthat the above two groups do differsignificantly in their environmentalawareness. The mean score of studentswhose parent’s income is in between‘Rs. 2,000 to below Rs. 4,500’ is higherwhich shows that they have moreenvironmental awareness.

Parent’s Income N M S. D. t- value Level ofSignificance

Below Rs. 2,000 102 221.49 33.03 2.61 0.05

Rs. 2,000 to Below Rs. 4,500 101 232.53 24.96

Course of N M S. D. t – value Level of SignificanceStudy

Arts 180 226.09 28.75 3.86 0.05

Science 180 237.68 28.26

(i) Below Rs. 2,000/ Rs. 2,000 to below Rs. 4,500

(ii) Below Rs. 2,000/ above Rs. 7,000

Parent’s Income N M S. D. t – value Level of Significance

Below Rs. 2,000 102 221.49 33.03 4.66 0.05

Above Rs. 7,000 91 241.37 26.48

66 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

From the table, it is evident thatt-value is significant at 0.05 level ofsignificance. Therefore, it may be saidthat the above two groups do differsignificantly in their environmentalawareness. The mean score of studentswhose parent’s income is in between‘above Rs. 7,000’ is higher which showsthat they have more environmentalawareness.

From the table, it is evident thatt-value is significant at 0.05 level ofsignificance. Therefore, it may be saidthat the above two groups do differsignificantly in their environmental

From the table, it is evident thatt-value is significant at 0.05 level ofsignificance. Therefore, it may be saidthat the above two groups do differsignificantly in their environmentalawareness. The mean score of studentshaving parents in government service ishigher which shows that they have moreenvironmental awareness.

Therefore, the null hypothesis thatcourse of study, parent’s income,parent’s occupation have no effect onenvironmental awareness of highersecondary students, are rejected at 0.05level of significance.

awareness. The mean score of studentswhose parent’s income is in between‘above Rs. 7,000’ is higher which showsthat they have more environmentalawareness.3. There is no significant difference

between the environmentalawareness scores of highersecondary students having parentsin government service and privateservice. The findings of the study areas follows:

(iii) Rs. 2,000 to below Rs. 4,500/ above Rs. 7,000

Parent’s income N M S. D. t- value Level ofSignificance

Rs. 2,000 to Below Rs. 4,500 101 232.53 24.96 2.58 0.05

Above Rs. 7,000 91 241.37 26.48

Objective II

To study the relationship between theenvironmental awareness and scientificattitudes among higher secondarystudents.

HR3: Environmental awareness hasrelationship with scientific attitudesamong higher secondary students.

Environmental awareness anddifferent dimensions or areas of scientificattitude were positively correlated and

Parent’s Occupation N M S. D. t- value Level ofSignificance

Government Service 190 238.33 25.89 4.57 0.05

Private Service 170 224.69 30.74

A Study of Relationship between Environmental Awarencess... 67

significant at 0.05 level of significance.Coefficients of correlations between themwere found as:

Environmental awareness/Aversion tosuperstition = 0.51582Environmental awareness/Suspendedjudgement = 0.40380Environmental awareness/Open-minded-ness = 0.33653Environmental awareness/Objectivity =0.28972Environmental awareness/Rationality =0.24175Environmental awareness/Curiosity =0.12474

It was found that aversion tosuperstition, suspended judgement,open-mindedness, objectivity, rationalityand curiosity were significantly relatedin sequence with environmentalawareness. Hence, environmentalawareness has significant relationshipwith aforesaid dimensions of scientificattitude of students.

Further, multiple regression analysissuggested six independent variables viz.aversion to superstition, suspendedjudgement, open mindedness,objectivity, rationality and curiositycombined in least square sense in theregression equation did in fact accountedfor 33.09 % (R = 0.5753, R2 = 0.3309) ofthe predicted variable, i. e.,environmental awareness. It wassignificant at 0.05 level of significance.

Therefore, the null hypothesis thatthere is no relationship between theenvironmental awareness and scientificattitudes among higher secondarystudents is rejected at 0.05 level ofsignificance.

The relationship betweenenvironmental awareness and different

dimensions of scientific attitude could bestudied with the regression equation inthe form:

Y = 156.6346 + 0.1759 X1 + 1.2481 X

2 – 0.4641

X3 + 0.4851 X

4 + 3.6171 X

5 + 2.2324 X

6

Where,Y = Predicted value of environmentalawareness score.X

1 = Curiosity X

4 = Rationality

X2 = Objectivity X

5 = Aversion to

superstitionX

3 = Open-mindedness X

6 = Suspended

judgement

Discussion of the Results

The findings of the study revealed that33.09 % of environmental awarenessmay be attributed to the scientificattitude. Remaining portion of variancemay be accounted for by othervariables.

Out of various educational variables,only course of study is significantlyrelated with environmental awarenessand scientific attitude. Science groupstudents are more aware to theirenvironment as compared to arts group.This may be due to the fact that sciencesubjects are more objective, rational andrelated to physical environment of thesurroundings as compared to artssubjects.

Scientific attitude is a must forenhancing environmental awarenessamong the students. This fact has beenemphasised by the finding that scientificattitude is higher among the studentswho have offered science as a subjectsin their studies. Thus, it becomesimperative to include the elementarystudy of science specially related toenvironment, in the course of studies inthe arts subjects.

68 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Contributions of parent’s occupationand income factors seem to be significantin the development of environmentalawareness and scientific attitude as well,but the contribution of other demog-raphic variables like age, religion, placeof residence are insignificant. Thisnaturally leads one to think that betterthe economic conditions of the familygreater the environmental awarenessand scientific attitude. In other words,poverty is detrimental to themaintenance of healthy environmentand development of scientific attitude.

Thus, it appears that scienceeducation, parent’s occupation andincome are significantly related in thedevelopment of environmental aware-ness. Poverty is a significant cause ofenvironmental pollution and anti-scientific outlooks.

About 33 % of the variance ofenvironmental awareness may beaccounted for the independent variables.Scientific attitudes, viz. aversion tosuperstition, suspended judgement,open-mindedness, objectivity, rationalityand curiosity are important in theprediction of environmental awarenessof higher secondary students. Theenvironmental awareness is positivelycorrelated with the scientific attitude ofthe students.

In the last, it may be concluded thatscience education, parent’s occupationand income, aversion to superstition,open-mindedness, suspended judge-ment, objectivity, rationality andcuriosity are potent factors for developingenvironmental awareness among highersecondary school.

Conclusions of the Study

On the basis of the findings of this study,it will be too ambitious to arrive at anydefinite conclusion. The findings of thestudy are revealing and indicatingtowards some conclusions. Environ-mental awareness has positiverelationship with different dimensions ofscientific attitude of higher secondarystudents. This means that students withbetter scientific attitude are more awaretowards environmental awareness andvice-versa.

About 33.09 % of the environmentalawareness scores of the students maybe accounted for by the scientific attitudescores of higher secondary students.

It also indicates that highersecondary students of Varanasi city havedeveloped a considerable amount ofenvironmental awareness amongthemselves. Science students, studentshaving parents belonging to high incomegroup and students having parents ingovernment service have developed moreenvironmental awareness as comparedto their counterparts in other groups.

Educational Implications of theStudy

On the basis of a single study it will bebold to suggest some educationalimplications of the present study.However, on the basis of the findings ofthe study a few educational implicationsof the study may be indicated as follows:

(1) Educationist, educational adminis-trators, and teachers mustacquaint their pupil about pros andcons of environmental pollution.

A Study of Relationship between Environmental Awarencess... 69

(2) Formal system of education shouldalso incorporate in its curriculum,some elements of environmentalawareness programmes. Thisshould be a compulsory part of thecurriculum.

(3) With the help of various mass mediaand modern means ofcommunication the concept ofenvironmental and its protectionshould be published andpopularised viz. news paper, radio,TV, film, etc.

(4) It would be more beneficial andeffective if special programmes arelaunched to develop environmentalawareness among the students.This is possible only throughinclusion of special courses onenvironmental education in theschools.

(5) Value-oriented education in thelight of environmental pollution andenvironmental awareness should beprovided.

REFERENCES

AMBASHT, R.S. 1990. Environmental and Pollution – An Ecological Approach, Student’sFriends and Co., Varanasi. First Edition, p-4.

Annual Report 2000-01. Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India,New Delhi. pp. 149-150.

Annual Report 2000-01. Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India,New Delhi. p-16.

MISHRA, ANURAG. 1995. “Environmental Awareness” Research paper, Kashi Vidyapeeth, p. 3.REDDY, G. RAM. 1995. Higher Education in India – Conformity, Crisis and Innovation.

Sterling Publication. p-104.________ 1995. Higher Education in India – Conformity, Crisis and Innovation. Sterling

Publication. p-102.SINGH, P.N. 1988. “Construction and Standardisation of Test of Scientific Attitude”.

A Ph.D. Thesis, B.H.U., p.10.

70 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Teachers’ Expectations from their UniversityA Study in the Context of University of Lucknow

M. VARMA*, M.S. SODHA** and RASHMI SONI***

Abstract

Teachers’ Expectations from various dimensions of the University of Lucknowwere studied by descriptive method and classified. Teachers were engaged inopen conversational interview which was recorded and afterwards subjected tocontent analysis which yielded 27 categories of expectations which were furtherclassified on the basis of similarities and dissimilarities into ten broad classes ofexpectations which have been discussed in this paper. Findings showed that theuniversity teachers expected reforms in admission and examination system. Also,they suggested modifications in the methods of teaching, dealing with indisciplineand the present activities of associations of teachers, students and the employees.They expected upgradation of infrastructure and resources in the universityespecially in the areas of library, laboratory, hostel, teachers’ residences andfacilities in the departments. Results indicated the expectations of university teachers’to redefine the role of university in present global scenario and to review the role ofvice chancellor, other officers of university, administration and duties of teachers.Several conflicting expectations were also obtained which have been discussed inthe paper. The study of Teachers’ Expectations from university has indicated needof reforms in the university on which the policy-makers and the stakeholdersshould focus their attention. The paper has suggested that periodically the studyof expectations from the university should be undertaken if the stakeholders desireto make the University of Lucknow capable and useful in the fast changing scenarioof Higher education in India and abroad.

* Professor, Department of Education, University of Lucknow, U.P.** Professor, Ex-Vice Chancellor, University of Lucknow, U.P.*** Lecturer, Mahila Vidyalaya P-G College, Lucknow, U.P.

the universities to fulfill their destinedrole. Since the teachers are probablythe most enlightened class of thestakeholders, and are essentialingredients in the functioning and

A University can obviously not fulfill itsrole if it is not aware of definiteexpectations of the society. This makesa study of expectations of stakeholdersof the University important for enabling

Teachers’ Expectations from their University 71

development of the University, it isappropriate to study their expectations.Such a study may provide insight forguiding the university into futureoperation because Teachers are the keyindividuals associated with thedevelopment of the university not onlyas mentors of students but also as thecustodians of academia. This studypresents a pilot investigation of theexpectations of the teachers of universityof Lucknow from their University.

Till now, in India, no systematicanalysis has been done of the extent towhich the expectations of its internalmembers, for example, teachers havebeen met. Even internationally, a littlework has been done in this crucial area.Expectations from the college Systemhas been studied by Blenda (1978) andthe obtained expectations have beencompared with the present achievementsof the Virginia Community CollegeSystem when it completed 10 years of life.The study yielded prognosis for thefuture of the college system as highlypositive changing community conditions,industrial sector and demography. Jones(2002) conducted research on thePerceptions of University image of EastTennessee State University. Theuniversities themselves keep onsurveying the perceptions of their imageheld by the stakeholders. The focusedgroups of select members of the internalacademy and the external communitieswere interviewed to examine the extentof congruency between and within twoconstituencies. Results showed that incongruencies existed between externaland internal stakeholders concerningtheir emphasis on University image. Theacademy focuses on process and external

constituencies focus on outcomes andproducts. Both these studies havevaluable implications for the research onUniversities in India.

Sample and Methodology

The data for this exploratory study wascollected from a group of 20 teachers ofthe University of Lucknow. To make thesample broad based, teachers belongingto different faculties and holdingdifferent offices were included in thesample. There were 09 professors, 07Readers, and 04 lecturers of whom 3 wereHeads of the Departments, and 05 heldsome office of the University and tworespondent teachers were the officebearers of University’s teachers’association. Teachers’ sample wasdrawn from 13 Departments belongingto 03 faculties of the university.

The objective was to explore theexpectations of academicians andteachers belonging to various universitydisciplines and areas of administration.The respondents were contacted onindividual basis to find out theirexpectations from the University ofLucknow. The respondent-centred, open,free and unstructured conversation waspreferred for collection of data to tapthe original ideas of the respondents.Whole proceedings of the conversationwere tape recorded for subsequentcontent analysis through which theconversations were converted into audioand written transcripts, which werequalitatively studied with the help ofinductive content analysis technique.This led to the distilling out of the majorideas of each respondent pertaining tothe expectations. When these individualexpectations were thoroughly and

72 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

inductively studied and comparedtogether, 27 major categories of teachers’expectations from University of Lucknowemerged, which were regrouped on thebasis of similarities and differences.

The juxtaposition, comparison,regrouping and synthesis of 27categories of expectations led to 10 broadclasses of expectations. Whilesynthesising the divergent expectations,every care was taken to safeguard theoriginality of the idea expressed by therespondents. The act of synthesis ofexpectations only attempted to bringsimilar ideas together and to link themwith each other to make a text usingsimple conjunctives. This was done asreliably as possible and the originalintent of the respondents wasmaintained.

Results

The findings of the present study havebeen stated in terms of the modificationsand reforms suggested by therespondents. Area-wise expectations ofthe teachers, which have beensynthesised into 10 broad classes, asfollows, have been discussed in thissection.

Idea of the University

The University should be a place forlearning, largely connected with the restof the world, helping itself in a moreconcentrated way to think cohesively,coherently, imaginatively and creativelyand then contributing to the society backand forth by helping everybody to reapthe benefits. University should also helppeople to think critically in the senseabout issues that concern them. Souniversity’s prime purpose must be to

develop social imagination in all itsconstituents, i.e. teachers and itsstudents. University education shoulddevelop skill of analysis, skill of seekingtruth beyond immediate, and to dreamof things which seem impossible rightnow. University, the soul of the society,should be a place for lot of self-criticalgrowth and not just a technocraticmanagerial model of trying to createpeople who will fit into the group anddeliver the goods. Liberation of mind isthe goal of the university.

Social Function of University ofLucknow

Expected Social outcome of the University

The main objectives of the Universityshould be the creation of knowledge,students’ character building andtraining of manpower. Universities arenot only organs of change but also anorgan for developing the attitude ofsociety and the citizens for a betterfuture. University should take up thechallenge of bringing desirable socialchange. University should take upextension and awareness programmes sothat the public at large can be served.University needs to interact with publicas well as with industry. Universityshould provide leadership to the society.The major social outcome of theuniversity should be to maintain theculture. Social implications of researchneed to be explored.

University–community interaction

It is the social responsibility of Universityto address the needs of the communityand to improve the quality of life of itspeople. The students can be used to

Teachers’ Expectations from their University 73

survey and enlist the problems of thecommunity and should be mobilised towork for them. There should be someforum for University-communityinteraction. Students from everydepartment should be involved in somekind of compulsory social service andextension services. Parents should beequally involved in the affairs of theUniversity.

Employment Generation

It was opined by some respondents thatHigher Education should not be made apre-requisite for jobs. Other respondentsemphasised that the students should beso educated that they definitely get aplacement in the society and is givenrecognition. Companies should beinvited by the university to give campusplacements to the students. U-G and P-G,courses need to be developed accordingto the requirements of the job market.Others felt that University should gearitself to the advancement of knowledgeand not just for the production ofemployment. Generation of jobsshould be the concern of vocationalinstitutions.

Admission

To avoid undue wastage of money andmanpower, the whole admission processof the University should be completedwithin one month. It should be plannedone year before. University should beobjective in admitting the students andshould not yield to political pressures.Interview should be introducedsomewhere in the admission process. Inorder to maintain the quality ofeducation, some mechanism should beinvolved for filtering out the disinterested

and disinclined students. Universityshould provide for the counselling of theaspiring entrants to various classes andfaculties.

Examination

Conduct of examinations need to bedecentralised and the departmentsneed to be entrusted to conduct theexaminations for the courses andprogrammes they run. The departmentsshould adopt a scientific and objectiveway to evaluate the abilities and skills oftheir students. Printing of questionpapers should be done in proper mannerand effort should be made for their safeand secure upkeep. Printing should beeconomic; question papers should lookattractive and crisp. They should be welledited and moderated. For this, theUniversity should have its own printingpress and elated infrastructure.Appointment of examiners should bedone according to the declared policy ofthe University and the whole system hasto be very transparent and fair. Theuniversity authorities should holdmeetings twice a year to have properpatterns of examinations, which shouldbe changed as per the requirement. Thepattern could be like 100 to 60 questionsin 3 hrs. It could be a speed-cum-powertest. Some subjective questions shouldalso be there to judge the knowledge,skills, language, expression and artisticand creative skills.

Some respondents advocated for awell-controlled and properlyadministered centralised evaluationsystem. University administration shouldensure secrecy, security and efficiencyin the central evaluation of the answerscripts. Whole process should be strictly

74 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

monitored and all infrastructures-cum-academic support should be available tothe examiners involved in centralevaluation. Students’ evaluation by theteachers who teach them should beencouraged and the answer scripts of thefirst three merit holders should be placedin the library where anybody can seethem. There should be a good discussionof the teachers with students after thedeclaration of examination results.

Infrastructure facilities

Library

Library should be well decorated,comfortable and supplied with the entireinfrastructure required for academicwork and study. Libraries should be thecentres for exchange of knowledgebetween scholars. The universitydepartments should transfer some partof their funds to the library. Books forparticular subjects for various coursesshould be there in the departmentallibrary in enough number and variety.The departmental library should fulfillthe local demands of teachers andstudents. The general and referencebooks, research literature, educationaljournals should be there in the centrallibrary. All the departmental librariesshould be networked together throughlocal area network and ultimately theyshould be linked to the central library ofthe University. A significant part of thefunds generated from the self-financingcourses needs to be siphoned out for thedevelopment and upgradation of theuniversity libraries. Central libraryshould also have networking with thelibraries of the constituent andassociated colleges of the University and

if possible also with, national libraries ofIndia as well as great libraries abroad.

There must be electronic sharing andpooling of documents so that duplicationcan be avoided. The old book issuesshould be preserved in a separate store.The whole library should becomputerised. New journals ande-journals should be subscribed in thelibraries. There must be an informationbureau in the library to help studentsget all information regarding study andemployment at home and abroad.

University should have centrallysubscribed journals, which will not onlyreduce the cost of research but also willcontribute in updating the research andthe researchers. The library should bedivided into three components – arts,science and commerce at separateservers. Departments should beencouraged to participate in the librarymanagement system. The personnel andstaff in the library should beprofessionally trained and be morecooperative. There is a need forcounselling of the library personnel tohelp them develop positive attitudetowards academics. Overall readingculture needs to be developed in teachersand students.

Hostel

There is a need to increase the numberof hostels in proportion to the students.In order to restore and maintainacademic environment in the hostels,library facility, with more recreativeliterature and books should be arrangedin the hostels. Proper nutritious foodshould be provided to the students in thehostel mess. Students should get things

Teachers’ Expectations from their University 75

at subsidised rates. Every hostel roomshould have a computer and Internetconnectivity. Fees submission, marksheets, degrees all these facilities shouldbe available in the hostel itself so thatthe students do not have to run andwaste time. Some outdoor and indooractivities should be there to make theyouths more active and energetic.

To avoid any misuse of hostels byunwanted elements and studentsdisinclined in studies, rooms should beallotted at the very day of admission onthe basis of merit-cum-requirement.Within a week after the examination,hostlers should vacate the hostels.Proper and professional management ofthe hostels will decrease half of the crimeand violence in the campus. It should bemade compulsory for the students tocomplete hostel dues, before they aregiven the degrees.

Residential Facility

The procedure for allotment of teachers’residences should be open, fair and just.Priority needs to be given to theimprovement and maintenance of theresidences. Quarters for Class IVemployees should have at least2-bedroom facility. Lastly, every year oneflat should be built in the campus andevery month at least 2-3 houses shouldbe renovated and maintained. Everyresidence should be provided with agarage facility. Every block of residencesshould have a small park for children, alibrary, canteen and a community roomfor ladies and children.

Other Infrastructure Facilities

As far as the infrastructure facilities andservices are concerned, university

should keep pace with the technologicaladvancements of the nation. Whileexpanding the buildings or constructingnew ones the aesthetics should be keptin mind. The infrastructure can bedivided into three parts – as per therequirements of U-G, P-G and researchstudents. There should be properenlistment of all the instruments invarious laboratories and it should beavailable to everyone.

Sports facility needs to be attendedto. Minimum infrastructure should beascertained for each department, forexample, Lecture hall, conference rooms,etc. There is a need for local and widearea computer networking in theuniversity. Hostels, departments,teachers’ residences, administrativeoffices, library and canteen all should benetworked and connected with the server.There needs to be a drastic scrutiny ofnon- teaching employees because thereis too much overstaffing.

The university should keep pace withthe revolution in Information Technology.Publishing work of the university shouldbe done through its own state of artmodern technology based publishinghouse and press. All the departments,units and beneficiaries of the universityneed global networking, InformationTechnology, Internet, intranet, andcomputers.

Vice Chancellor

A Vice Chancellor should be aneducationist and an academician, aperson with a vision and a mission to givea direction to the society. Vice Chancellorshould be bold and an intellectual personwith good administrative qualities. Hemust be a person who is dedicated and

76 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

committed, one who believes in thephilosophy of simple living and highthinking. He should be concerned withthe welfare of university’s teachers,students and employees and must makethem realise that he is working for theirbenefit.

Vice Chancellor should berespectable and work to create suchcongenial environment, where allteachers and students can work freelyand comfortably. He must appreciategood work done by the teachers.Resource generation is also an importantfunction of the Vice Chancellor and forthat he must have new projects, plansand programmes. In order that the ViceChancellor can perform the abovefunctions smoothly, it is important thatthe society and politicians take theappointment of the Vice Chancellor asthe most serious matter. The incumbentsshould be invited to make presentationsof their vision for the universityconcerned and his plans for theimprovement of the university.

Administration

Members from different walks of lifeshould be members of the governing bodyof the university. There should be properchecks and balances in governance,administration and accounting.University administration is the areawhere people respect and appreciateothers and their growth. There shouldbe proper utilisation of resources andrules and University Act should befollowed strictly.

Only the persons well-versed with theUniversity’s activities should be made themembers of Executive Council. Theregistrar is the custodian of the

University’s records. Nature of his workis administrative not academic.Registrar should be a person who canadvise the Vice Chancellor regarding theuniversity’s traditions, culture, rules,laws, etc. He should be a person who ispermanent so that a sense ofbelongingness is developed. Therespondents suggested that there shouldbe scheduling of activities of theuniversity, elections should be reformed,students should be made moreaccountable to organise certainactivities, networking of teaching andnon-teaching staff and accountability ofteachers, heads, non-teaching staff toperform different activities.

Associated Colleges

The University should play the role ofa guide for its associated colleges andthe two should work as one community.The basic purpose of affiliation is thatthe colleges are to be fed by the universityfor all purposes not just for examinationor degree purposes. Some respondentsheld the view that in order to maintainthe quality of education, Universityshould only run post-graduate andresearch programmes. The under-graduate courses should be either givento the colleges or any parallel universityin the city may be established to affiliateU-G. colleges.

Since the university has associatedcolleges in the city of Lucknow only, itwould be better to have some governingbody empowered to check, supervise andmonitor the standard of under-graduateeducation in affiliated colleges. Thereshould be proper interaction andexchange of ideas between universityand college teachers. University should

Teachers’ Expectations from their University 77

frequently run refresher courses andcareer enhancement programmes forcollege teachers. The office of Director,College Development Council (DCDC)should be strengthened. The universityshould remain in touch with collegeteachers through monthly meetings andother academic programmes.

University Departments

Respondents expected to have somesystem in the university for assessing itsdepartments on the basis of theacademic progress made by the teachers.Every department must arrange at leastone seminar every month. Every year,each department should be encouragedto come out with some published workin the form of book, monograph or report.Departments should have a guidance cellnot only to counsel their own studentsbut the school students also.

Head of the Department should notbe purely an administrative officer buthe is a teacher, professor andacademician first. The post of the Headshould not be given merely on senioritybasis, rather it should be work andacademic output based. Head of theDepartment should have a vision,should be a person who has the liabilityto carry on the department well. Thisshould be made a selection post as someIndian Universities are presently doing.

Autonomy

In addition to the external autonomy,autonomy within the university is alsoessential. The universities are alsoexpected to set the limits and ethics oftheir own autonomy. What is requiredis autonomy with accountability andtransparency with social justice. The

universities should not be madeaccountable to a dictator but to a largercommunity of people itself. Theuniversity should guard against beingsubservient to the total undemocraticpolitical parties alone. State interferenceshould be less. The government shouldavoid red tapism to deal with theuniversity. The University should followa clear-cut policy of financial autonomy.Either the model of purely privateuniversities with high fees or the modelof state funded university with moderatefees should be adopted. In case ofUniversity of Lucknow, there should bemore financial freedom along withaccountability. Autonomy and financialautonomy are interrelated. Autonomywill deliver better goods if the Universityis able to generate more resources andthe students’ fees are decreased.

Self-financing Courses

Self-sufficiency should be the only goalbehind running Self-financing coursesin University of Lucknow. Theseprogrammes should not be taken as amilch cow. Self-financing courses areimportant means to raise finances andthereby bringing financial autonomy iffunds generated are controlled andmanaged judiciously for the generalbenefit and development of the Universityby the Vice-Chancellor. Other alternativepractices should also be employed togenerate funds. A part of fundsgenerated by self-financing coursesshould be utilised in strengtheninginfrastructure of the universitydepartments. For example, upgradationof laboratories, purchase of equipmentsrequired for high profile research, officesupplies and infrastructure like

78 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

computers, air conditioners, books, CD’s,etc. The university should also take stepsto discontinue self-financing courses,which are unpopular, obsolete oruseless.

Teacher, Teaching and Research

University Teacher

The university should engage itself in anongoing debate on what makes a gooduniversity teacher. How he or she shouldbe different from a school/collegeteacher or an industry executive?Selection procedures of teachers shouldbe rigorous. He/she may be included inthe faculty after a week or monthsobservation after evaluation of his vision,academic credentials and his idea of theacademic and examination reforms. Theprospective teacher should be requiredto make presentation of his vision for hisdiscipline and the university along withhis academic work, pedagogy, andpublications before the selectioncommittee.

Teachers should be updated andmust have a broader vision. Orientationand Refresher Programmes should be in-built in the professional enculturationand development of the teachers. Theteacher must share with the studentshis new knowledge and exposure of theworld. Benefit of the presentations andlectures from outside experts should becontinuously extended to the University’steachers. Seminars, conferences,workshops, such opportunities should begiven to the teachers. The universitymust be liberal in giving sponsorship tothe teachers to go abroad to attendworkshops and conferences so that theymay update themselves in this age of

drastic information explosion. Quality ofwork should be given more importance.Only then can the teachers work withmotivation and commitment. Everyteacher must get his/her due timelywithout complaints.

The university teacher shouldmaintain the dignity of his role. Teachersshould set an example for students,should maintain punctuality and shouldbe capable of maintaining the decencyand decorum of the class. He must beable to creatively interact with peopleand exchange ideas.

Quality of Teaching and TeachingMethods

The University and college teachers mustcontribute to the Higher Education sectorand all available information should beconveyed to the students in a propermanner. Along with the lecture method,there should be presentations,discussions, and interactions. Thereshould be more classroom discussions.The new topics should be linked with thetraditional topics. Some guest lecturersfrom abroad should be invited andstudents must be given opportunity tointeract with them. Interactive and casemethod of teaching and learning shouldbe adopted.

Application aspect of learning shouldbe given more importance to make thestudents practical and to help themcompete in the outside job market. Thereshould be long hours of reading, longhours of stay and leaflets and handoutsshould be given to the students.Students should be motivated to readjournals and e-journals. Curiosity andinquisitiveness of students should bereinforced. University by its nature is an

Teachers’ Expectations from their University 79

academic place and the faculty must tryto strengthen this aspect becausestudents will not be able to enter goodvocations or jobs until their academicbase is strong. Academic aspect shouldsupersede the vocational education inthe university.

The IIM model of pedagogy should befollowed. The content should betransformed into cases and case studiesby the teacher and then presented in theclass. This will make the subjectapplication-oriented. Prior to teaching,the teacher should give a list ofrecommended reading material as wellas pre-planned case studies andhandouts/ brief synopsis. Studentsshould be recommended books at the endof every topic. The teacher is responsiblefor developing the reading material if itis not available for any topic, chapter,paper or subject. Teacher should alsoteach what is not available in thetextbook. Internal motivation has to bearoused in the students. There shouldbe more and more tutorials to ensuremore interaction with teachers and theoverall development of the students.

Of the two functions, for example,teaching and research the University ofLucknow should emphasise more onteaching. Curricula need to be revisedand updated. University should help toprovide opportunity for both studentsand teachers to enrich from globalexperiences and increased connectivity.

Research

Research is the most important functionof the University. Research mustcontribute to the growth anddevelopment of individual and body andknowledge. It is believed that complete

autonomy is required to generateknowledge and research work.Universities generally emphasisefundamental research, applied andaction research. Some longitudinalstudies solving institutional problemsneed our attention. There is an absoluteneed to conduct theme-basedresearches. Possibility of open-endedresearches must always remain.University should arrange more fundingfor research. Published research workshould constitute an importantcomponent of teachers’ evaluation.Research is a part and parcel of theuniversity and there should be qualityresearch on new aspects. Teachers fromdifferent faculties need to collaborate instudies and researches ofinterdisciplinary nature.

Collaborations

Interactions and collaborations areimportant for the growth of University.First the university must enter into inter-university and intra-universitycollaborations. Sciences and humanitiesshould collaborate more. Relateddisciplines like Sociology and social workshould collaborate more. Longitudinalcollaborations should also be done.Most respondents expected inter-departmental collaborations. Collabora-tions of university with different researchand professional institutes are essential.University-college collaborations shouldalso be attempted. Every departmenthas a lot to learn from other departmentsin the same as well as other universities.Mutual exchange programmes shouldtake place in the departments coveredby UGC’s Special Assistance Program-mes. Groups of the departments

80 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

may conduct Inter-departmentalquizzes and cultural programmes andother pogrammes of inter-universitynature. There should be more sharingand exchange of views and information.

New Courses and Departments

The respondents expected the Universityof Lucknow to establish and runseveral new departments/centers/units,for example, Department of culture,Department of Human Rights, Valueeducation, Gandhian studies,Department of Fashion technology, andCommunication and Personalitydevelopment cell.

Discipline

The problem of indiscipline can betackled by adhering to the admissionpolicy-based on the sanctioned studentstrength and selectiveness and devisingmethods to filter out the undeservingand disinclined students. Indisciplinecan be checked by encouraging thefaculty to have rich and sufficientinteraction with students throughvarious co-curricular and tutorialactivities and providing dynamicleadership to students. Students shouldbe motivated to develop reading habits.The university should be very particularin religiously ensuring that all theclasses are arranged regularly.University should also find out the socialand political roots of indiscipline anddevise means and methods to cope withthe situation.

Campus Life

For a good campus life students shouldbe made to believe that the campus issafe and secure. Basic amenities have

to be provided like parks, canteens,public libraries, etc. Development of agood work culture in the University willcontribute to a rich campus life. A cultureof teaching, research, academic freedom,congenial student-teacher relationsneed to be emphasised for a bettercampus life. There should be culturalengagements outside the university forteachers and students to create positiveenvironment for teacher community.Enhancement of infrastructure with asense of aesthetics will also contributeto a better campus life.

Students’ Welfare and Student-teacher Relationship

Students’ Welfare Services

An information bureau is must forstudents from where the students,parents and teachers all can getimportant information at one place.Secondly, there should be anOccupational Information cell where thestudent can update himself with all theinformation regarding the vacancies inthe job market. There must be a‘Psychological and Career CounsellingCell’ to help the students. Separatecommon room, browsing room withcomputer and Internet facility, cafeteriaand gym for girls in the supervision ofany senior lady professor should also beprovided in the university campus andin women’s hostel.

Student-teacher Relationship

More interaction should be therebetween students and teachers. Manyproblems of the University can be solvedif student-teacher relationships aredesirably strengthened. Teachers should

Teachers’ Expectations from their University 81

know their students’ interests,aspirations, strengths and weaknesses.The gap between the two has to bereduced. The cooperation between thetwo needs to be reinforced. Teachersshould present themselves before thestudents with gravity and they shouldtake the students’ viewpoints seriously.

Political Aspect

Politics and Political Interference in theCampus of the University

Being headquartered at the State capitalof a big north Indian State, the Universityof Lucknow should guard itself frombecoming playground for politicians andbureaucrats. For this the Universitymust not yield to the undue demandsand pressures of the politicians and theirinterference in its routine affairs. Theuniversity should discover ways andmeans to use politics constructively andat what levels students should getinvolved in politics. Therefore, in thiscontext, there is a need for a sincerepolitical thought and a proactive role ofthe University. Political awarenessshould be such which can makestudents realise what is good and badfor them. Students should be taught tothink about serving the society andcommunity, instead of getting entangledwith some political party.

University students must be madeaware of good corporate life under thesupervision of teachers who are hostelprovosts and those involved in students’welfare activities. A legal system forelection of students union has to bedeveloped after a careful thought anddiscussion of university administrationwith the civic authorities. There must be

a check on the student leaders and ifany illegal behaviour found, they shouldbe disqualified. University students maytry to get acquainted with variouspolitical ideologies but they should enteractive politics only after completing theirstudies and after knowing the needs ofthe society. University should not beused as a political arena. Election ofteachers and students should be freefrom political interference and theyshould be based on the consideration ofinterests of students and teachers.

Unions and Associations

The unions and associations in theuniversity are independent democraticagencies and must work for the welfareof its members, i.e. teachers, studentsand employees. Their energies should bechannelised towards the betterment andimprovement of the system. TeachersUnion should be fairer and should besensitive towards teachers’ genuineneeds and must have a constructive andsuggestive role to play.

In order to stop political interferencein the university the students’associations should not be allowed tobecome local offices of the politicalparties and leaders. Student unionsshould be made more accountable bysome awakening sessions by theteachers. There must also be a provisionto induct in the student unions a fewstudents who are good in studies. Theemployees’ association should also bemade more accountable. A creativesuggestion was given by one respondentthat the university should have only oneassociation to safeguard the interests ofteachers, students and employees. This

82 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

will balance the antagonistic interests ofthe unions of teachers, students andemployees.

Discussion

Following generalisations, trends, gapsand conflicting ideas were obtained fromthe study of the findings in terms ofteachers’ expectations from theiruniversity.

Trends in Teachers’ Expectationsfrom University

Most of the respondents expressedexpectations from the University bybeing highly critical of the poorinfrastructure of university of Lucknowin the areas like library, labs, hostels,residences and computerisation andcampus life and facilities. But they couldnot give concrete ideas as in what waythe University should manage to meetsuch expectations. Most of theexpectations were routine type. Theprogressive and modern characteristicwas missing in the expectations of theteachers from University of Lucknow. Insome areas like functions, curriculum,examination, admission, research, roleof teachers, Vice Chancellor andadministration, no striking expectationwas observed.

Most of the expectations appeareddominated mostly by the localconsiderations. The respondents did notimport ideas from the great universitiesand institutions of higher learning inIndia and abroad. This might be eitherdue to the limited exposure andinteraction of the responding teachers ofUniversity of Lucknow or the issuesrelating to the university did not appear

to be the matter of concern of therespondents.

Neglected Areas

No expectations were expressed on therole of University of Lucknow in thenational economy and the developmentof economic values in the students. Thefunction of the University to provideplacements and training inEntrepreneurship has not been reflected.

University education is alsosomething beyond academics, not justmeant to infuse bookish knowledge in theminds of the students. It also has a roleto develop overall personality of thestudents (Sodha, 2000; and Varma andSoni, 2005). The respondents did notproperly address this expectation

Teachers have no doubt talked a lotabout their expectations regardingdifferent important aspects,administration and authorities ofUniversity of Lucknow, but no body assuch tried to throw light on what weretheir expectations from themselves. Whatwas their vision about their own role andresponsibility as a university teacher,and what targets, aspirations andcontributions they fixed forthemselves?

Nobody gave any new and creativeidea regarding the schemes, modusoperandi and the management ofOrientation and refresher courses fortransforming the teachers of Universityinto effective professionals. Theresponding teachers have nothighlighted the concrete steps theUniversity is expected to follow to makethe atmosphere more positive and full ofenergy, which can infuse the students,

Teachers’ Expectations from their University 83

teachers and other authorities withmotivation and power.

Neither the respondents expresseddissatisfaction over the old andunrevised university curricula nor didthey suggest upgradation of courses andprogrammes in the light of recentchanges and researches and explosionof knowledge triggered by the ICTrevolution. Also the expectationsregarding innovative admissionprocedure, which may ensure the intakeof willing and motivated students, werenot touched upon. Teachers also did notexpect from University of Lucknow anywholesome examination reform; rather afew respondents expected somepatchwork reforms.

Conflicting Expectations

Some conflicting ideas emerged in theviews of the teachers regarding someaspects, for example, examination andevaluation system in University. It wasfelt by some teachers that semestersystem of examination would be good anda continuous evaluation system shouldbe followed. Some questioned theobjectivity of this system. Another areawhere the conflict in the views of theteachers came forward was that somepreferred objective types of questions inthe examination but others were of theopinion that true knowledge can bejudged only through subjectivequestions.

Some teachers held the view thatthere should be an employment andmarket orientation of the courses taughtin the university. However, some othersbelieved that University is meant only foracademic and knowledge pursuit and not

for professional courses or providing jobsor be market driven. It was also felt bysome that there is an urgent need totransform the University by restrictingthe University to only PG studies andresearch. The undergraduate coursesshould be totally confined to the affiliatedcolleges. However, many of the teachersconflicted on this view and said that theUniversity being located in technicallyand educationally backward regionshould cater to students from allstrata and must continue withundergraduate, postgraduate andresearch studies.

Reflections from the disturbing andindiscipline role of student leaders andtheir supporters who are disinterestedstudents made some respondents feelthat the elections for the unions ofteachers, students and employeesshould be totally banned in the campuswhereas the others strongly rejected thisview saying that these associations andunions are important for the welfare ofthe different groups and are necessaryin a democratic setup.

Conclusion

This study on a typical north Indianresidential University yielded twenty-seven categories divided into ten broadclasses of teachers’ expectations fromUniversity of Lucknow. Implications ofthe results for the University’sstakeholders are that the expectationshave created the need for refinements inthe University in the near future so thatthe University becomes capable inaddressing to the positively changingconditions of the community,undercurrents of globalisation of

84 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

economy and technological revolution,changes in the State and industrialsector and changing characteristics andsize of the population served by the

REFERENCES

JONES, JANES MYERS. 2002. University Image: Perceptions held by internal and externalstakeholders of East Tennessee State University. Dissertation AbstractsInternational, 62 (11), p 3710-A.

SODHA, M.S. 2000. Education Plus. University News, 38 (20), pp 1-4.The University of Lucknow Act, 1920The University of Lucknow First Statutes, 1977.The U.P. State Universities Act 1973. Eastern Book Company, Lucknow, p. 5WOODARD, BLENDA ANN. 1978. An Analysis of the Expectations and Achievements of

the Virginia Community College System after its First Decade of Operations1966-67. Dissertation Abstracts International, 38 (9). p. 5291-A.

VARMA, M. and M.S. SODHA. 2005. Audio Recordings of Open Conversations with Teachersof University of Lucknow.

VARMA, M. and SODHA. 2005. Transcripts of Open Conversations with Teachers of Universityof Lucknow.

VARMA, M. and RASHMI SONI. 2005. Higher Education beyond Academics, UniversityNews, 43 (44), pp 8-14.

University. The model developed for theUniversity of Lucknow may prove usefulfor other similar Indian Universities, withsome modifications.

A Study of the Present Scenario of Early Childhood Education in Bhubaneswar 85

A Study of the Present Scenario of EarlyChildhood Education in Bhubaneswar

G.N. PRAKASH SRIVASTAVA* and RANJEATA SINGH**

Abstract

Introduction

The Early Childhood Education (ECE)has received special attention in thenational education policies andprogrammes especially after the adoptionof National Policy for Children (1974).The Integrated Child DevelopmentServices (ICDS) scheme launched in1975 as a sequel to children’s policy isan important milestone in the growth ofECE in the country. It got furtherimpetus with the adoption of theNational Policy on Education (1986),which viewed it as a crucial input in thestrategy of human resource development,as a feeder and support programme forprimary education. Consequently the

The various policies and programmes of education place emphasis on EarlyChildhood Education (ECE). In this regard, NCERT has also come out with a‘Minimum Specifications for Pre-schools’ to ensure that every school is equippedwith the necessary requirements to cater to early childhood education. The presentstudy covers ten ECE centres in Bhubaneshwar in its study to see if they meetthese specifications of NCERT. The finding is hardly encouraging with most of thecentres wanting in various aspects of the NCERT norms. There is an urgent needfor the quantitative as well as qualitative improvement of these centres.

* Head, Department of Education, (NCERT) Regional Institute of Education, Bhopal 462 013.**Professor (Education), RIE, Bhubaneswar.

National Curriculum Framework (NCF,2005) states that young children beprovided care, opportunities andexperiences that lead to their all-rounddevelopment – physical, mental, socialand emotional, and school readiness(NCERT, 2005). National Policy onEducation (MHRD, 1986) recommendeda holistic approach for the developmentof the child. It also emphasised that theintroduction of 3 R’s and formal methodsof teaching and learning ought to bediscouraged at this stage (prior to6 years. of age) and the entire ECEprogramme should be organised aroundplay and child’s individuality.

The NCF (2005) observes ‘‘the earlychildhood stage, until the age of 6-8 years

A Study of the Present Scenario of Early Childhood Education in Bhubaneswar 87

and Central Welfare Board took stepsto open pre-school centres in the nameof Balwadis and Anganwadis. Thenumber of these institutions areincreasing day-by-day. Three BalwadiTraining Centres at Bhubaneswar,Baripada and Koraput have also beenopened for pre-service and in-servicetraining of teachers. Most of the Balwadiand Anganwadi centres have beenestablished in rural, tribal and slumareas. At these centres, children get freeeducation and are supplied with playmaterials and Mid-day Meals.

In urban areas, English medium Pre-school Centres are predominant thoughthey charge high fee, particularly forrunning such centers as they do not getany financial assistance from theGovernment or any other agency. Amongthese Nursery and K.G. schools, conventschools, Steward Schools, D.A.V.Schools, Institutes of Integral Educationare quite prominent in Bhubaneswar.Apart from English medium they alsoimpart instruction in Hindi and Oriya.They provide ample facilities foremotional, intellectual and aestheticdevelopment of children throughcurricular and co-curricular activities.Indian Association of Pre-SchoolEducation have opened a Model OriyaMedium Pre-School Centre inBhubaneswar. Some other organisationslike REACH are also working to providePre-School Education to Tribal andRural Children in Oriya medium. It is agood sign that many institutions andpersons are now showing interest toopen pre-school centres. Internationalorganisations are also coming forward toassist for the cause of Pre-schoolEducation in the State.

The Study

Keeping in view the above observationsa study was conducted in 2005-06 to findout the present status of ECE inBhubaneswar entitled “A Study on thePresent Status of Early ChildhoodEducation (ECE) in Bhubaneswar”which encompasses the physicalfacilities including out-door and in-doorequipments content and methodology,teachers’ qualification, language skilldevelopment, cognitive skill develop-ment, creative and expressive art (musicand dance, drama and dramatic plays),physical education including hygiene,health care and nutrition and provisionsfor social and emotional development atECE centres.

The present study was an attemptto put forward the prevailing conditionsof ECE centres in Bhubaneswar inaccordance with ‘Minimum Specifica-tions for Pre-schools set by NCERT(1996), list of activities designed to assistthe development of child as a whole withreference to the ‘Early ChildhoodEducation Curriculum’ (NCERT,1996)and to know about the teachers basicknowledge of child development.

The Objectives1. To study the physical facilities

prevailing at ECE centres ofBhubaneswar.

2. To find out the minimumqualification of teachers in thesecentres.

3. To study the equipments andmaterials used at these ECEcentres.

4. To study the content andmethodology adopted by these ECEcentres.

A Study of the Present Scenario of Early Childhood Education in Bhubaneswar 89

done for each item of interview scheduleand observation schedule. For thequestionnaire a descriptive analysis wasdone.

Major Findings

● 20% of ECE centres currentlyrunning in Bhubaneswar fulfill theNCERT norms, i.e. the catchmentarea of ECE centres withouttransport facility is ½ to 1 kms. andwith transport facility is 1 to 8 kms.

● As precautionary measures, 90% ofECE centres have school boundary.

● In 40% of ECE centres theclassroom area for 30 children ismore than 35 sq.mts. The norm setby NCERT is 35 sq.mts. for a classof 30 children. Thus, out of 10 ECEcentres only 4 ones fulfilled thenorm.

● All ECE centres have toilet, 70 % ofcentres have veranda and only 10%have food storage and cookingfacility in addition to classrooms.

● 80% of ECE centres displaychildren’s work on classroom wallsat children’s level.

● Though 60% of centres provideaquaguard facility but mostlychildren use their own water bottle.

● All the ECE centres have Indiantype toilet with regular water supplyand 80% of them provide soap andtowel as sanitary facility to children.

● Only 20% of ECE centres have out-door play area of 300 to 450 sqr.mts.

● For outdoor play, 80% of ECEcentres provide ball to childrenwhereas other play materials arehardly found as shown in Table 1given here.

Table 1: Availability of Equipment forOut-door play

Equipments No. of ECEAvailable centres

Flying disc 3Ball 8Skipping 1Cycle 2Rope Ladder 1Slide 3Sand pit 2Water Play 1Bat 2Clay 1Ring Ball 2See-Saw 1

Swing 1

● As in-door equipments, 50% ofECE centers provided buildingblocks to children. Other materialsavailable at these centers were asper Table 2 given below.

Table 2: Equipment for In-door play

Equipment No. of ECEAvailable centres

Sand 1Paper 3Colour 1Beads 2Clay 3Water 1Building Block 5Toys 1Puzzles 3Card Boards 1Picture with broken pieces 1Seriation 1

Matching 1

A Study of the Present Scenario of Early Childhood Education in Bhubaneswar 91

Content and Methodology

The content and methodology was foundchild-centred and process-oriented.Activities like rhymes, action andasking questions to individual child weredone in all the 10 ECE centres. In 9institutions activities like singing,dancing and drawing were done; in 8institutions activities like paper foldingwas performed; 5 institutions gaveemphasis on mini sports; in 4institutions children were asked to telland narrate stories; 2 centres providedopportunity for clay modelling; andteachers had free talk with children in2 institutions. Most of the ECE centresconducted activities organised at thesecentres.

Table 5: Child-centred and Process-oriented Activities

Activities No.of Institutions

Paper folding 8Singing 9Story-telling by students 4Dancing 9Clay Modelling 2Asking questions 10Free talk 2Conducting Debate 1Drawing 9Fancy Dress 1Mini Sports 5Computer Games 1Narration 2Mono-acting 1Rhyme with Action 10

● 80% of ECE centres, conductedparent-teacher meeting to discussabout the child’s progress in theclass.

● Though the medium of instructionin all the institutions was Englishbut Hindi, Oriya and Bengali werealso used in different institutions.

Table 6: Daily Activities for Physical and Mental Development

Activities No.ofInstitutions

Mass P.T. 1Yoga 2Puzzle 1Jumping 1Drilling 3Questioning 2Running 1Playing 3Dancing 1Preparation of Craft-work 1Simple exercise 2Problem-solving activity 1Aerobic 1Meditation 1G.K. 1

According to NCERT specification theactivities for physical and mentaldevelopment of children should be as pertheir age and developmental stage. Inthe study it was not found so, andactivities were performed as per Table 6.

Activities for Parent-teacher Contact

It was found that out 10 ECE Centres 8institutions conducted parent-teachermeeting; 4 institutions used to haveformal talk with parents, in 3institutions teachers used to maintainstudent diary, in 2 institutionscounselling session was organised forparents and in other 2 institutionsparents were contacted through phone

A Study of the Present Scenario of Early Childhood Education in Bhubaneswar 93

songs and rhymes; in 1 institutionstudents were taught about differentways of greeting their elders and friends;and in 2 institutions simple reading wasfollowed. However, no importance wasgiven to role play activity at any of theECE centre.

Reading Skill Development

Table 8 shows the strategies used fordeveloping reading skills of kids:

Table 8

Strategies No. ofInstitutions

Picture Reading 6

Sorting/Matching/Pairing 1

What is wrong -

Letter Recognition 8

Developing Association -

According to ECE curriculum,activities to be done in class fordeveloping reading skill in children suchas picture reading, sorting, matching,pairing of objects, finding what is wrong,letter recognition and development ofassociating abilities by providing variousobjects.

Development of Writing Skills

Table 9 shows various activitiesperformed at ECE centres to developeye-hand-coordination in kids.

According to NCERT, ECEcurriculum activities like tracing andsimple writing were emphasised only intwo institutions. The coordinationbetween eye and hand through tracingand simple writing lead to thedevelopment of writing skill. Various

other activities as mentioned in Table 9related to eye-hand-coordination wereadopted in other ECE Centres.

Development of Cognitive Skills

Simple comparison, copying differentshapes, pair formation, identifyingthings, puzzle solving, explanation byteachers, chart/model showing wereused at these ECE centres, 30% of ECEcentres only gave, importance toexplanation by teachers and simplecomparison of objects. Teacher’sresponses were that for promotingcognitive skills. Activities like playingthrough educational aids, memorygames, putting questions throughstories, playing the game odd-man-out,puzzles, block building, manipulationof materials, nature-talk and walkand explaining by showing somematerials, etc. were used at thesecentres.

Table 9

Activities related to develop No. ofeye-hand-coordination Institutions

Training 2

Writing 2

Colouring/drawing 9

Thumb/Vegetable printing 2

Puzzle solving 1

Finding odd man out -

Making association 1

Block Building 2

Joining of dots 1

Paper tearing/folding 2

Stringing the beads 2

Catching balls 1

A Study of the Present Scenario of Early Childhood Education in Bhubaneswar 95

Table 10

Activities No.of Institutions

Painting 6

Print making 3

Tracing 1

Moulding 3

Craft 3

Group work 2

Building Blocks 2

For the development of creativethinking ability in children ECEcurriculum gives importance to any typeof activity which involves application ofstudent’s brain. The above mentionedpractices were going on in 1 to 6 centreswhereas rest 4 institutions were notdoing anything for this.

Music and Dance

Songs/rhymes, imitating songs, playingon musical instruments, presentation ofrecorded music and dance were practicedin 7 to 10 institutions. It was useful forthe development of coordination betweenthinking and action. According to ECEspecification coordination betweenthinking and expressing that in actioncan be well-developed by providingpractice in dance and music to children.

Development of Muscle Coordination

In this reference, in 1 school teacherparticipated in developing children’smuscle coordination by encouragingchildren to play, in 7 schools simpleexercises were demonstrated to children,in 1 school annual sports day wasconducted, in 4 schools drill practice wasused, in 2 schools the teacher herself

played alongwith children, in another2 schools dance practice was given,whereas in 1 school children wereassisted by the teacher in various games.ECE specification (NCERT….) suggestedthat teachers in ECE centres should tryto involve themselves more and more inclassroom activities, which may enhancemuscle coordination in children.

Other Findings

● Story-telling, Role play, Puppetshow, Fancy Dress Competition anddrama were used for expression ofchildren’s feeling into action. Inorder to allow students express theirfeeling without teaching differentactions, single symbols were used.

● For imparting new information tochildren free talk, CDs, story-telling,Play-way-method, PresentingPicture and charts, drawing, tape-recorder Field trip, New PaperReading and Book Reading by theteacher were used.

● Physical Development Programmewas taken-up through Yoga,Laughing, Dancing, Playing rhymes.

● Health, Hygiene, Care and NutritionProgramme was done through toilettraining, uniform checking, nailchecking, hair checking, shoeschecking and training for goodmanners, developing the habit ofusing handkerchief/napkins,inviting doctor at the centre forhealth checkup and developing thehabit of brushing the nutritionalproblems in children andinstruction on food habits andadvising parents.

● Social and emotional developmentrelated activities included training

A Study of the Present Scenario of Early Childhood Education in Bhubaneswar 97

MOHITE, P. 1990. Review of Researches in Early Childhood Care and Education : ATrend Report. M.S. University of Baroda. Fifth Survey of Educational Research,Vol. II.

MURTHY, V. 1992. An investigation into the scholastic readiness of pre-school children,University of Bombay. Fifth Survey of Educational Research, Vol. II.

NCERT. 1996. Minimum specifications for Pre-Schools. NCERT, New Delhi.________ 1996. Prarambhik Bal Shiksha Karyakram. NCERT, New Delhi.________ 1992. Prarambhik Bal Shiksha : Prashikcharthi Pustika. NCERT, New Delhi.PATTANAIK. A. 1991. Effects of Pre-school Education on Cognitive Development

of Primary School Children. Utkal University. Fifth Survey of Educational Research,Vol. II.

ROBINSON, H.F. 1977. Exploring Teaching in Early Childhood Education. Allyn and Bacon,Inc., New York.

SETH, K. and K. AHUJA. 1992. Minimum Specifications for Pre-schools. National Councilof Educational Research and Training. Fifth Survey of Educational Research,Vol. II.

SHUKLA, R.P. 2003. Early Childhood Care and Education. Sarup and Sons, AnsariRoad, Darya Gunj, New Delhi.

SOOD, N. 1992. Pre-school Education in the ICDS : An appraisal. New Delhi : NationalInstitute of Public Cooperation and Child Development. Fifth Survey of EducationalResearch, Vol. II.

SPODEK, B. 1982. Handbook of Research in Early Childhood Education. The Free Press,A Division of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., New York.

SRIVASTAVA, S. 1992. A short-term longitudinal study of the impact of exposure to thescience-oriented educational toys on the concept and language development ofthe pre-school children. Indian Council for Child Welfare, Madras. Fifth Survey ofEducational Research. Vol. II.

YASODHARA, P. 1991. Attitudes of parents and teachers towards various aspectsof pre-school education. Psychology. Utkal University of Educational Research,Vol. II.

98 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Participation of Scheduled CastesChildren at the Primary Stage in India

RAJESH TAILOR*, SANDEEP KUMAR SHARMA** and RITESH TAILOR***

Abstract

Introduction

Education is the key factor for the socialdevelopment. It plays very important rolein making social status and socialmobility. But a large section ourpopulation could not get opportunity tobe a part of educated society due tovarious reasons. The section ofscheduled castes is one of them. Theexpression Scheduled Castes was firstcoined by the Simon Commission andembodied in the Government of India Actof 1935. While these castes were listedsystematically in the 1931 Census of

This paper discusses the participation of Scheduled Castes children at primarystage of school education in India according to Seventh All India School EducationSurvey (7th AISES). Among Scheduled Castes children, girls participation isspecially focused. Present status has been compared with past data to know theimprovement in their participation and it is statistically analysed. This paper willprovide the base for the assessment of the development of educational status ofScheduled Castes children at primary stage of education after Sarva ShikshaAbhiyan (SSA) as the commencement year of SSA programme and year ofinformation collection under Seventh All India School Education Survey is same.

* Lecturer in Statistics, DES&DP, NCERT, New Delhi.** Research Associate, DES&DP, NCERT, New Delhi.*** Assistant Professor of Statistics, Lokmanya Tilak Mahavidyalaya, Ujjain, M.P.

India (Kambley (1982), pp. 31). Manygreat Indians like Mahatma Gandhi,Mahatma Fuley and Dr. Bhim RaoAmbedkar worked for the welfare of SCand they have given enormouscontribution to bring them in main-stream of the society. AfterIndependence, lots of efforts have beenmade by the Government of India andState governments to improve their socialand economic status. Article 46 of theConstitution states that, “The State shallpromote, with special care, the educationand economic interests of the weakersections of the people, and, in particular

Participation of Scheduled Castes Children at the Primary Stage in India 99

of the Scheduled Castes and ScheduledTribes, and shall protect them fromsocial injustice and all forms of socialexploitation”. Articles 330, 332, 335, 338to 342 and the entire Fifth and SixthSchedules of the Constitution deal withspecial provisions for implementation ofthe objectives set forth in Article 46 (GOI,2005,v). These provisions need to be fullyutilised for the benefit of these weakersections in our society. Despite all theseefforts it needs some more attention andefforts to bring them completely in themain-stream.

This paper is an effort to presentstatus of participation of ScheduledCastes children at primary stage withconsideration of schemes for thedevelopment of their education. For thispurpose the data of the Seventh All IndiaSchool Education Survey (7th AISES)(Reference Date: September 30, 2002)have been taken. To know thedevelopment in last decade, the data ofthe Sixth All India Education Survey(Reference Date: September 30, 1993) areconsidered.

Programme of Action (PoA), 1992

National Policy on Education, 1986 wasmodified in 1992 and a new Programmeof Action (PoA, 1992) was prepared. Asper PoA, 1992, following are the majorinitiatives to be taken for the educationaldevelopment of Scheduled Castes.(GOI, 1992: 11-12)

● Incentives to indigent families tosend their children to schoolregularly till they reach the age of14;

● Pre-metric Scholarship scheme forchildren of families engaged in

occupations such as scavenging,flaying and tanning to be madeapplicable from Class I onwards.All children of such families,regardless of incomes, will becovered by this scheme and time-bound programmes targetted onthem will be undertaken.

● Constant micro-planning andverification to ensure that theenrolment, retention and success-ful completion of courses by SCstudents do not fall at any stage,and provision of remedial coursesto improve their prospects forfurther education and employment.

● Recruitment of teachers fromScheduled Castes;

● Provision of facilities for SCstudents in students’ hostels atdistrict headquarters, according toa phased programme;

● Location of school building,Balwadies and Adult Educationscentres in such a way as tofacilitate full participation of theScheduled Castes;

● The utilisation of Jawahar RozgarYojana resources so as to makesubstantial educational facilitiesavailable to Scheduled Castes; and

● Constant innovation in finding newmethods to increase theparticipation of the ScheduledCastes in the educational process.

Special Provisions made by theGovernment

After independence, the Government ofIndia has taken a number of steps todevelop education level of SCs/ STs.National Policy on Education (1986) and

100 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

it’s modification in 1992 have also statedmeasures to be taken as priority. Inpursuant of NPE 1986 and theProgramme of Action (1992), Governmentof India has incorporated some specialprovisions in the existing scheme (GOI,2006-07). These are:

● Relaxed norms for opening ofprimary /middle schools; a primaryschool within 1 km walking distancefrom habitations of population upto 200 instead of habitations of upto 300 population.

● Abolition of tuition fee in all Statesin Government schools at least upto the upper primary level. In fact,most of the States have abolishedtuition fees for SC/ST students upto the senior secondary level.

● Free textbooks, uniforms,stationery, schools bags, etc.

● The Constitutional (86th Amend-ment) Bill, notified on 13 December2002, provides for free andcompulsory elementary educationas a Fundamental Right, for allchildren in the age group of 6-14years.

● In addition to aforementionedsteps, many other Programmes likeSarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA),District Primary EducationProgramme (DPEP), Janshala,Mahila Samakhya (MS), NationalProgramme for Education of Girls atElementary level (NPEGEL),Shiksha Karmi Project (SKP), etc.were launched by the government.All these programmes gave specialattention to education of ScheduledCaste children.

Availability of Educational Facilityat the Primary Stage in Habitations

According to the Seventh All India SchoolEducation Survey, there are 12,09,521rural habitations with a population of77,72,17,623. Out of total, 6,23,498(51.55%) habitations are served by primarystage within the habitation, which cater78.17% of the rural population of thecountry. As regards habitations servedwithin a distance of one kilometer, it isobserved that 10,35,764 (85.63%)habitations covering 94.17% populationof the rural area, are served.

There are 1,74,700 habitationspredominantly populated by theScheduled Castes. Of these, 42.50%habitations, covering 68.05% of thepopulation living in these habitations,have education facility at primary stagewithin the habitation and 86.07%habitations, covering 92.84% of thepopulation living in the habitationspredominantly populated by ScheduledCastes, have the facility within onekilometer.

If the availability of primaryeducation facility in the habitationspredominantly populated by ScheduledCastes is analysed in different populationslabs, it observed that out of 22,739habitations with population below 500,only 26.18% are served within thehabitation and 81.71% habitations arehaving access to primary educationwithin a distance of one kilometer. Thisindicates that 18% habitations do nothave the facility of primary educationwithin a distance of kilometer. It has beenfound that more than 95% habitationswith population slabs 1000-1999,

Participation of Scheduled Castes Children at the Primary Stage in India 101

2000-4999 and 5000 and above areserved within one kilometer. Table 1presents primary stage education facilityin habitations predominantly populatedby Scheduled Castes in differentpopulation slabs.

Enrolment of Scheduled CastesChildren at Primary Stage

At primary stage 12,29,15,301 childrenare enrolled, out of which 46.82% aregirls and 53.18% are boys. There is adifference of 6.36% in the enrolment ofgirls and boys at national level. Rural andurban areas have 46.73% and 47.10%girls enrolment respectively. Enrolmentof scheduled castes children at primarystage is 2,59,03,832, which constitutes21.07 percentage of the total enrolment.Percentage of scheduled castes childrenagainst total enrolment of rural area is22.42 where as this percentage in urbanarea is 16.87, which show that in ruralarea SC has bigger share as comparedto the urban area. In rural area, totalenrolment of scheduled castes childrenis 2,08,74,716. In this enrolment, 46.53per cent are girls and 53.47 per centboys. It shows that SC girls enrolmentpercentage is almost same as overall girlspercentage. This is an achievement ofthe efforts made by central government,state governments and various non-government organisations working forthe education of the scheduled casteschildren. In urban area, 50,29,116scheduled castes children are enrolledin which 47.35% are girls and 52.65%boys. It is observed that in urban areagirls percentage of SC children is littlebit higher than overall girls percentagein urban area. Over all girls enrolmentpercentage of SC is 46.69.

According to the 6th All IndiaEducational Survey (1999), 1,90,35,297scheduled castes children were enrolledwhich was 19.62% of the total enrolment.This has gone up to 21.07% in the 7th

AISES i.e. share of SC children hasincreased by 1.45% in comparison to the6th Survey. Girls enrolment percentagein scheduled castes children was41.66% in the 6th survey which has goneup to 46.69%. Hence, in comparison tothe 6th Survey, SC girls enrolmentpercentage has increased by 5.03%.SC girls enrolment percentage hasincreased by 6.06% and 1.38% inrural and urban areas respectively.Table 2 compares the enrolment ofscheduled castes children in the 6th and7th surveys.

From Table 2 it is observed that SCgirls percentage has increasedsignificantly in rural, urban and overallareas. In comparison to the 6th surveythe enrolment of scheduled casteschildren has gone up by 36.08 in the 7th

survey. In rural and urban areas thisgrowth has been 40.14% and 21.49%respectively.

Picture 1 depicts the increase of SCchildren enrolment percentage in totalenrolment rural, urban and overall areasin the 7th Survey as compared to the 6th

Survey. It is to be noted that there is gainof only 0.01% in urban area. This pictureshows a gain of 1.87% in rural area and1.45% is overall. Picture 2 depicts thetrend of share of scheduled casteschildren. From this picture it is clear thatin the Fourth Survey (1978), SCpercentage was only 14.73, which hasreached up to 21.07% in the SeventhSurvey (2002).

102 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Managementwise Position

In Primary schools, total enrolment is8,09,00,653 out of which 47.38% are girlsand 52.62% boys. In total enrolment,53.55% are enrolled in governmentschools, 30.69% in local body schools,5.75% in private aided schools and10.01% in private unaided schools. It isobserved that out of total enrolment ofscheduled castes children in primaryschools, 56.51% are in governmentschools, 31.99 % in local body schools,4.73% in private aided schools and6.77% in private unaided schools. It isalso clear from Table 3 that in rural,urban and overall area the maximumpercentage of enrolment of SC childrenis in government schools. In Table 3managementwise distribution ofscheduled castes children enrolled inprimary schools is given.

Participation of Scheduled casteschildren in Different States

Table 4 shows statewise position of SCpopulation percentage, SC enrolmentpercentage and percentage of girls in SCenrolment at primary stage in rural,urban and overall areas in India.

It is observed that Punjab hasmaximum SC population percentage28.85 where as Lakshdweep, Nagalandand A & N Islands have minimum zeroper cent. National SC populationpercentage is 16.20. Twenty-two States/Union Territories are below this nationalfigure whereas 12 states/unionterritories are above it. Karnataka isequal to national figure. Punjab hasmaximum percentage of SC enrolment,which is 48.09% and A & N Islandsminimum zero per cent. Out of totalenrolment at primary stage, national

Perce ntage of Sched uled Cas te s Child ren in Total En ro lm e nt at Pr im ary Stag e

19.62 20.55

16.86

21.07

16.87

22.42

0

5

10

15

20

25

Rural Urban Total

Area

SC

Per

cen

tag

e

6th Survey

7th Survey

Tre nd of Share of Sche duled Castes Children in Total Enrolment at Primary Stage

21.07

19.6217.12

14.73

0.00

5.00

10.00

15.00

20.00

25.00

FourthSurvey(1978)

Fifth Survey(1986)

Sixth Survey(1993)

SeventhSurvey(2002)

Surveys

Per

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Series1

Picture 1 Picture 2

Participation of Scheduled Castes Children at the Primary Stage in India 103

SC enrolment percentage is 21.07. Thereare 28 States/Union Territories belowthis figure and only 7 States/UnionTerritories above it. In rural and urbanareas national SC girls percentage are46.53 and 47.35 respectively. In ruralarea, Lakshdweep has maximum SC girlspercentage which is 100 and minimumzero in A & N Islands. There are 23States/Union Territories have SC girlspercentage above the nationalpercentage in rural area and remaining12 States/Union Territories below it. Inurban area, maximum SC girlspercentage is 54.57 of Sikkim andminimum zero per cent of Lakshdweepand A & N Islands. Nineteen States/Union Territories are above the nationalpercentage of SC girls whereas sixteenStates/Union Territories are below thenational percentage. Considering theoverall area, the national percentage ofSC girls is 46.69, which is approximatelyequal to that of rural area. In rural area,twenty-three States/Union Territoriesare above the national percentage of SCgirls and twelve States/Union Territoriesare below it.

Conclusions

● More than 95% of all habitationspredominantly populated byScheduled Castes with populationslabs 1000–1999, 2000–4999 and5000 and above are served by

primary stage within a distance ofone kilometer.

● Around 19% of all habitationswhich are predominantly populatedby Scheduled Castes withpopulation slab below 500 are stillunserved within a distance of onekilometer.

● In the period of 24 years (1978-2002), that is the period betweenfourth survey and seventh survey,there has been a remarkableimprovement in participation of SCchildren at primary stage as theirshare in total enrolment has goneup to 21.07 from 14.73.

● The percentage of SC girls in ruraland urban area is almost same asoverall percentage of girls inrespective areas.

● During the intervening periodbetween 6th survey and 7th survey,the increase of 36.08% in theenrolment of SC children has beenrecorded which tells success storyof the different schemes/programmes launched for thedevelopment of education ofscheduled castes children.

● Some States namely, Bihar(38.80%), Jharkhand (41.63%) andRajasthan (44.42%) have SC girlspercentage below 45% in rural area.So, these states need special effortsto bring SC girls to school.

REFERENCES

KAMBLEY, N.D. 1982. The Scheduled Castes. Ashish Publishing House. New Delhi.Government of India. 1992. National Policy on Education-1986 (With modifications

undertaken in 1992). Department of Education, Ministry of Human ResourceDevelopment, New Delhi.

104 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Government of India. 2007. Annual Report (2004-2005). Department of SchoolEducation and Literacy and Department of Higher Education. Ministry of HumanResource Development, New Delhi.

_________ 2005. Educational Development of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.Department of Secondary and Higher Education, Ministry of Human ResourceDevelopment, New Delhi.

NCERT. 1999. Sixth All India Educational Survey – Main Report. Department ofEducational Surveys and Data Processing. NCERT, New Delhi.

_________ 2007. Seventh All India School Education Survey – Schooling Facilities inRural Area. NCERT, New Delhi.

_________ 2007. Seventh All India School Education Survey – Enrolment in Schools.NCERT, New Delhi.

Participation of Scheduled Castes Children at the Primary Stage in India 105T

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106 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Table 2: Comparison of Scheduled Castes Enrolment in the 6th and 7th Surveys

Area 6th Survey 7th Survey Growth inGirls Total Girls Girls Total Girls Girls

% % Percentage

Rural 60,27,912 1,48,95,737 40.47 97,12,770 2,08,74,716 46.53 6.06

Urban 19,02,761 41,39,560 45.97 23,81,061 50,29,116 47.35 1.38

Total 79,30,673 1,90,35,297 41.66 1,20,93,831 2,59,03,832 46.69 5.03

Table 3: Management wise Percentage of Children Enrolled in Primary Schools

Management Rural Urban Total

All SC All SC All SC

Government 59.13 60.03 28.33 36.92 53.55 56.51

Local Body 31.70 32.69 26.13 28.10 30.69 31.99

Private Aided 3.33 2.98 16.66 14.48 5.75 4.73

Private Unaided 5.83 4.30 28.89 20.49 10.01 6.77

Participation of Scheduled Castes Children at the Primary Stage in India 107

Table 4: Statewise SC Population Percentage, Enrolment Percentage and GirlsEnrolment Percentage at Primary Stage

SC Population SC Enrolment SC Girls PercentageSl. State/Uts Population in Percentage inNo. Total Population Total Enrolment Rural Urban Total

1 Andhra Pradesh 16.19 19.93 49.18 49.34 49.21 2 Arunachal Pradesh 0.56 1.05 46.07 39.95 44.56 3 Assam 6.85 10.6 47.48 47.96 47.56 4 Bihar 15.72 17.09 38.35 45.9 38.8 5 Chhattisgarh 11.61 14.69 47.83 48.79 48.01 6 Goa 1.77 2.52 50.06 46.74 47.77 7 Gujarat 7.09 8.14 47.01 49.46 46.79 8 Haryana 19.35 26.51 46.52 49.37 47.01 9 Himachal Pradesh 24.72 29.21 48.70 46.72 48.5910 Jammu & Kashmir 7.59 9.16 46.09 45.87 46.0511 Jharkhand 11.84 13.41 40.68 47.11 41.6312 Karnataka 16.2 19.99 48.36 48.20 48.3213 Kerala 9.81 10.35 48.27 49.43 48.4914 Madhya Pradesh 15.17 18.37 46.02 46.84 46.2415 Maharashtra 10.2 14.44 48.33 48.20 48.1916 Manipur 2.77 3.28 45.46 49.83 47.9917 Meghalaya 0.48 1.85 48.03 54.52 51.2718 Mizoram 0.03 0.65 34.78 46.06 45.7619 Nagaland 0.00 2.78 45.87 46.14 46.0520 Orissa 16.53 20.4 47.17 48.29 47.2821 Punjab 28.85 48.09 47.61 49.21 47.922 Rajasthan 17.16 20.34 44.10 45.72 44.4223 Sikkim 5.02 7.13 49.90 54.57 50.1824 Tamil Nadu 19.00 25.54 48.65 48.41 48.5625 Tripura 17.37 19.47 48.72 48.3 48.6526 Uttar Pradesh 21.15 30.69 46.57 45.05 46.3827 Uttarakhand 17.87 25.04 49.23 47.97 49.0228 West Bengal 23.02 28.42 48.51 48.94 48.5629 A &N Islands 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.0030 Chandigarh 17.5 17.2 44.4 47.13 46.5631 D & N Haveli 1.86 1.96 47.7 47.75 47.7232 Daman & Diu 3.06 3.95 50.68 46.84 48.633 Delhi 16.92 13.28 48.07 45.11 45.3234 Lakshdweep 0.00 0.03 100.00 0.00 50.0035 Pondicherry 16.19 18.2 48.43 49.4 48.84

INDIA 16.20 21.07 46.53 47.35 46.69

108 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Strengthening the role of State in SchoolEducation vis-à-vis the Private Initiative

PH. NEWTON SINGH*

Abstract

The paper pleads for a strong and a more pro-active role of the State in view of thegrowth of the private schools especially in primary education sector. Most of theprivate schools, as many of the findings confirm, mostly cater education for thechildren of the wealthy families. In a developing country like India where illiteracyrate and also the never-enrolled rate is relatively high, giving a free hand to privateplayers to deliver a primary public good like education will not portend well forthe country. Moreover, fulfillment of the much desired objective of universalelementary education would remain a distant dream if the state withdraws itselffrom its responsibility and allows the government school system to deterioratefurther till it dies a silent death.

*Research Scholar, 001 Extn. Brahmaputra Hostel, JNU, New Delhi.

A recent instance of a child being deniedadmission in one of the ‘elite publicschools’ in Delhi despite meeting therequired percentage of mark has exposedthe myths associated with these schools.The only reason that deprives the childher otherwise deserved admission is herpoor family and social background,which the school administration thinksdoes not meet the eligibility criteria setfor these schools. There are such similarinstances happening in these so-calledelite public schools. It is in factparadoxical with the term ‘public’ whenthese schools are in fact serving only afew section of the society. In fact, private

school system today has become more ofan agency of social and classreproduction than the transmitters ofknowledge and values. Cultural capital,comparable to economic capital, istransmitted by inheritance and investedin order to be cultivated. And throughthe new type of private schools emerging,the existing social and class divide tendto perpetuate further, creating a newform of cultural capital exclusively for afew section of the population. Thisreproduction of social and class divideis less a result of direct reproductionbased on inherited wealth and incomes,and has more to do with the mediated

Strengthening the role of State in School Education vis-à-vis the Private Initiative 109

patterns, for example, access to well-paidemployment. This would be true if we seethe portrayal of private schools asmarkers of excellence or merit and alsothe alleged higher market value of thepersons with private schools background.

Private schools have now almostreached a proportion we can no longerafford to ignore. They have grown up sorapidly to become a kind of substitute for,rather than supplement to governmentschools. This could be attributed to manyfactors among which the deterioratingcondition of the government schoolingsystem and parental demand of adifferentiated kind of education areimportant. However, the promotion andexpansion of private sector may furtheraccentuate existing social divisions andreduce commitment towards qualityimprovement in government schools.Further, what is significant as VimalaRamachnadran (2004) argues is that,the growth of new private schools ‘isgiving rise to a new trends of hierarchiesof access, whereby paradoxically, thedemocratisation of access to schoolsseems to be accompanied by a child’scaste, community and gender in definingwhich school she or he attends’. AndreBeteille also argues that the “familyamong middle class and upper middleclass Indians is changing its orientationaway from lineage, sub-caste and casteto schools, college and office they attendto’*.

Furthermore, the privatephenomenon in school education hasalso posed serious questions on the policyimplications on the part of the State.

What if the government remains a silentspectator while at the same time allowingits own system to wither? What are theconsequences on the issue of equity ifthe private schools overhaul thegovernment school system and whatshould be the response from the state?The subsequent sections of the studywould seek to understand some of theseissues pertaining to private schools vis-à-vis government schools.

Tracing the Genesis of PrivatePhenomenon

Children’s education in the beginningwas a matter of family, the kinship groupor the local community. In severalcountries, education became a task forreligious institutions, and during thenineteenth century only, the State madeeducation a public responsibility.Education was until then private in thesense that it did not belong to the State;it was decentralised and nationalcurricula were very rare (Mallison, 1980).

The private initiatives in educationin India could be traced in the ancientand medieval period in various formssuch as the Ashram schools, Gurukuls,Pathsalas and Madrasas which caterededucation to small section of the society.In ancient India, almost all schooling wasconducted by religious bodies or bytutors employed on an individual basisby families with sufficient means. In factthe view that government has responsiblefor education of their citizens has beenwidely held only since the 19th centuryin Europe and since the early 20th

century in most other parts of the world

* Quoted in Anne Waldrop, The meaning of the Old School-Tie: Private Schools, Admission Procedures and Class Segmentation in New Delhi, pp.203-27.

110 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

(Bray, 1998). Before that we had religiousinstitutions directly engaging in thesphere of education. This is in theprocess of secularisation that religiouscontrol over education and educationalinstitutions was challenged and thestate became a public provider ofeducation.

However, the modern fee-payingprivate schools in India owe their originto the Wood’s Dispatch of 1854 (Tilak,1990) which made elaborate provisionsfor grants-in-aid to private schools.Under the provisions of the Dispatch,educational institutions were allowed torun privately for profit. By this provisionfor grants-in-aid for the private schoolswas not only able to reduce financialburden on the public treasury, but alsocould introduce elitist character into theeducational system providing educationof the kind the upper classes desired fortheir off-springs, without a largeexpenditure by the government. This isin fact a reflection of a capitalist ideologywhere the role of the state is greatlyreduced. The present system of privateschool unfortunately, is a continuationof this system.

Defining private schools is also apainstaking exercise. There are varioustypes of schools under the nomenclatureof private. The private schools are not ahomogenous lot. There are different typesof private schools in the country but aregenerally clubbed together and arelabeled as private schools. The privatesector includes actors with varyingmotivations, resources and the rangesextend from voluntary organisations,missionary schools and schools foundedon philanthropic venture to clearlycommercials set ups. It is important here

to mention that some of the schools areestablished and even registered underthe commercial establishment and shopsact (Panchamukhi, 1989). Even amongthe private schools there is a broadclassification of private schools as privateaided and non-aided or self-financingschools. The present study shall primaryfocus on the private unaided schoolswhich are either formally recognised totransact educational business or notnecessarily recognised.

It is pertinent here to mention thatthe Constitution of India allowsestablishment of private schoolsirrespective of whether they are or arenot recognised and aided by the State(Anuradha De, 2002). Article 30 of theIndian Constitution also clearlymentions the Right of Minorities toestablish and administer educationalinstitutions. Private schools thus, havea legal and constitutional sanction toestablish and operate in India.

However, the major concern is thepace of the growth of the private schoolswhich if not checked could overthrow thegovernment schools. Placing such alarge stake as education on privatesectors cannot be a good proposition.Moreover, in a country like India wherethe dropout rate and the never-enrolledstudents is still high, the State has alsoto play a more pro-active role. It is in thiscontext that the Constitution 93rd

Amendment, 1992 has placed a strongerview of the State by making elementaryeducation a Fundamental Right byinserting Article 21 (A) stating that, theState ‘shall provide free and compulsoryeducation to all children of the age of 6to 14 years in such as the State may bylaw determine’.

Strengthening the role of State in School Education vis-à-vis the Private Initiative 111

Making elementary education afundamental right by this amendmenthas reinforced the role of the State inachieving the goal of free, universalelementary education as envisaged in theDirective Principles of State Policy. Theincreasing responsibility entrusted bythe Act on the one hand and theincreasing growth of private schools onthe other, pose a question on the role andthe credibility of both the State and theprivate actors.

Understanding Private Schools: ASociological Perspective

Education, like health is primarily apublic good. The public good ethos islinked to socio-democratic ideals ofopportunities and access for many. Sincethe fundamental assumption thateducation would help erode the sociallyinherited structural inequities andprovide opportunities for socialadvancement through equity of accessand opportunity, it would continue to beregarded as public good (Levin, 1987).And in a country like India wheremajority of the population is belowpoverty line and belong to the lowerincome strata and also whereeducational achievement compares stilllow with other developed countries of theworld, education should not be limitedby financial considerations.

While analysing private schools ineducation, it would be appropriate totake into account the available evidenceabout locational distribution, socialreach by looking into the class and socialcomposition of these schools to assessthe nature of clients of private schools.The general assumption is that theprivate schools cater education mostly

to the children of higher income strataand generally the elite class in thesociety. It is also found that privateschools are concentrated mostly in theurban areas. However, their spread hasnow even penetrated in the rural areasalso. Gender bias is also witnessedthough less pronounced, taking intoconsideration the income level of thefamilies. For example, parents unable toafford sending both their children toprivate schools will prefer their maleward to be sent to the private school. Ifthese assumptions of the private schoolhold true, and as some of the findingseven show and if they remain anexclusive domain of a few children of theaffluent families, then it will do moreharm than good in education andachievement of universal elementaryeducation will remain an illusion.

Anuradha De et at. (2002) findingson the percentage distribution of theprimary and upper primary studentsfrom two polar groups in 1993 reveal twodifferent worlds of education if we takeinto consideration two extreme cases ofrural, female SC/ST students of Indiaand urban, male forward caste studentsof the same country. Only about 2 percent in the primary and 5 per cent inthe upper primary students of the formercategory are taught in the privateunaided schools. And the evidence thatprivate school enrolment is biasedtowards males is more straightforward.

Dreze and Gazder (1996) in theirstudy in Uttar Pradesh also reveal thatschool attendance in private schools is‘significantly male dominated as parentsare more willing to pay for male children’.This could be attributed to parents’ morewillingness to permit a male child to

112 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

travel the location where private schoolsare established. Implicit in it is that theseprivate schools are located far from therural areas. Tilak and Sudarshan (2000)study also reports similar findings. Whileexamining the trend in private enrolmentthey report that nearly a half of thegrowth in enrolment in urban areas anda sixth of the growth in rural areas ofIndia were accounted for by the privateunaided schools between 1986 and 1993.They also find biases favouring urban,male and non-scheduled caste andtribes. What explains these biases then?The higher cost of sending children toprivate schools and in-affordability of theparents could be one. The privateinstitutions, according to Tilak (1990)practice exclusiveness through charginghigh tuition fees and alarmingly largecapitation fees or donations and throughselection of children on the basis ofintellectual aptitude defined by theparental and familial background.Another factor that explains thelocational bias could be theconcentration of more affluent parentsin urban than the rural areas and hencethe larger concentration of these schoolsin these areas.

Based on their findings, theyconclude that private schools mayaggravate the already existinginequalities along lines of gender andcaste. Looking at the considerable biasesin the clientele of private schools,Anuradha De et al. also conclude that‘private schools are more for boys, forupper caste, and for urban areas thangovernment schools, and also attendingthese schools has become a mark ofsocial privilege’.

Are Private Schools Really Betterthan the Government Schools?

A true comparison between privateschools and the government schools iscrucial. In terms of infrastructure,teaching methods, pupils’ achievementand teacher competence, the privateschools are better than the governmentschools. Many of the studies report thesame. However, the PROBE Data differsin terms of teacher competency. It saysthat teaching skills for primary levelchildren were not superior to those foundamong the government school teachers.

However, these perceived advantagesof private schools in education may beattributed to many factors. The parentsand students’ cultural capital very muchinfluence the client composition of theprivate schools. There are differencesbetween the students when they enrollin private and government schoolsrespectively. Those students opting forprivate schools have higher motivationand more cultural capital and privilegedparents choose these schools over thegovernment schools. The clienthomogeneity of the private schools, itsconsideration for profit which ensuresmanagerial efficiency and the element ofmonopoly rent which its products enjoydue to its small share in the market arethe major factors which put privateschools above the government schools intheir comparison (Varghese, 1993).

However, Tilak (1990) gives ascathing critique of the private schools,terming the so-called of excellence of theprivate schools as myth. He argues thatthe quality of private schools is notnecessarily superior. Not only are privateschools inferior in quality, they also

Strengthening the role of State in School Education vis-à-vis the Private Initiative 113

contribute to the decline in the qualityof public institutions and thus to thedeterioration on the overall quality ofeducation. He sees profit as sole motivebehind the mushrooming privateschools. This is the result why they growmore in cosmopolitan urban areas thanthe rural areas, ‘to satisfy the needs ofthe gullible parents’. And some of thestate governments support theirexpansion as long as they serve thevested interest. This, he thinks wouldjeopardise the objective of equalopportunities for education and theoverall effect would be to converteducation into a force for reinforcing theexisting stratification of the society.

Renewing State’s Legitimacy

The new legislation after the 93rd

Amendment making elementaryeducation a Fundamental Right hasimposed a strong obligation on the stateto play a pro-active in providingeducation. It is also true that with theincreased demand of education, the statecannot be the sole provider of educationin India. There are both theoretical andpractical limitations. Taking intoaccount the limitations of the state, theTenth Five-Year Plan also suggests asynergetic partnership between theprivate and the government sectors inachieving universal elementaryeducation.

However, the recent surge in thegrowth of private schools especially as aresult of the falling quality of thegovernment schools seems to havechanged the equation between thegovernment and the private schools. Ifthe private schools become an alternativeto government schools and become a

dominating feature in education, it couldlead to decay of educational standardsbesides class conflict in the country(Ruhela, 1993). In this context the Statehas to renew its legitimacy as publicauthority in education. The existinggovernment schools need to be improvedand new curriculum introduced so as tocounter the private schools. The schoolsneed to be equipped with properinfrastructures and learning materials.And most importantly, there shouldemerge a proper mechanism to regulatethe existing private schools. Until now,state has not been doing much toregulate these schools and many of themspring up in many states even withoutthe government’s knowledge.

The absence of regulation has alsofacilitated the growth of these schools,creating a dual system of education withthe government schools deterioratingfurther. Therefore, giving private playersa free hand especially in areas of publicgood like education will not be a healthydevelopment. The case of HimachalPradesh’s success story in transforminga mass illiteracy to near universalprimary education almost entirely withthe government schools with relativelylittle contribution from privateinstitutions during a short time could bereplicated in other states.

Moreover, unless the effectiveness ofthe government school system improves,there are little prospects ofuniversalisation of elementary educationin India by 2010 as promised in theConstitution of India. The experience ofthe now industrialised countriesdemonstrates that while private sectorcould play supportive role, it is the statewhich plays a more dominant role. The

114 Journal of Indian Education August 2007

Indian state will need to be much morepro-active in reforming the public schoolsystem. At the same time, the quality ofschooling in the private sector couldimprove of the state were to take a morepro-active regulatory role. The KothariCommission (1964-66) also stated that‘the growing educational needs of amodernising society can only be met bythe State and it would be a mistake toshow any over-dependence on privateenterprises which is basicallyuncertain’. This concern also findsechoed in the overwhelming messageemanating from the District Primary

Education Programmes (DPEP) schoolsthat the presence of a good qualitygovernment school, which functionsregularly, can indeed surmount manyobstacles of the prevalent social andeconomic barriers to schooling. AsVimala Ramachandran (2004) rightlysays ‘special strategies are also necessaryto reach out elementary education to thepeople who not only belong to the mostdeprived sub-groups of scheduled castesand tribes but are also the people withalmost no voice in the society’. This canbe fulfilled only when there is a strongstate, supplemented by the private players.

REFERENCES

ANURADHA, DE, et.al. 2002. Private Schools and Universal Elementary Education inR. Govinda (ed.) India Education Report: A Profile of Basic Education, NIEPA, Oxford,New Delhi.

BASHIR and KINGDON. 1996. and GOVINDA and VAGHESE. 1992. These studies are summarilydealt in R. Govinda (ed.) India Education Report: A Profile of Basic Education,NIEPA, Oxford, New Delhi. Their findings suggest that private schools performbetter than the government schools in terms of operational efficiency, lowerrunning cost and higher achievements.

BRAY, MARK. 1998. Privatisation of Schooling: Strategies and Policy Implications inLess Developed Countries, in YASH AGGARWAL and KUSUM K. PREMI (eds.) ReformingSchool Education: Issues in Policy Planning and Implementation, NIEPA, New Delhi,p. 227.

DREZE, JEAN and AMARTYA SEN (eds.). 1996. Indian Development. Oxford UniversityPress, Delhi.

LEVIN, H.J. 1987. Education as a Public and Private Good, quoted in D.K. Nauriyaland Sanjeev Bhalla, ‘Higher Education in the New Millennium: The Need for aParadigm Shift’ Journal of Educational Planning and Administration, Vol. XVIII, No.3, July 2004, pp. 329-61.

Government of India. 2002. 10th Five Year Plan (2002-2007) Vol.II, Sectoral Policiesand Programmes, Planning Commission, New Delhi.

MALISON, V. 1980. The Western Idea in Education, Oxford, Pergamon Press.Kothari Commission. 1964-66. Ministry of Education, Government of India, pp.

446-47.PANCHAMUKHI. 1989. Economics of Educational Finance, Mumbai: Himalaya. quoted

in J.B.G. TILAK and M. SUDARSHAN. 2000. Private Schooling in Rural India, WorkingPaper Series. No. 76, NCAER. p.2.

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PROBE Team. 1999. Public Report on Basic Education, Oxford University Press: NewDelhi.

RAMACHANDRAN, V.K. VIMALA (ed.). 2004. Gender and Social Equity in Primary Education.Sage, New Delhi. pp.70-88.

RUHELA, S.P. 1993. Sociology of Private Initiative, in R.P. Singh (ed.) Private initiativeand Public Policy in Education, Federation of Management of EducationalInstitutions, New Delhi, p. 26.

TILAK, JANDHYALA, B.G. 1990. The Political Economy of Education in India, Special Studiesin Comparative Education, No. 24. Graduate School of Education and StateUniversity of New York.

TILAK, J.B.G. and R.M. SUDARSHAN. 2000. Private Schooling in India, Paper preparedunder the Programme Research in Human Development of the National Councilof Applied Economic Research by UNDP, New Delhi.

VARGHESE, N.V. 1993. Private Schools in India: Presumptions and Provisions in R.P.Singh (ed.) Private Initiative and Public Policy in Education. Federation ofManagement of Educational Institutions, New Delhi.